Christmas Theme swap

As promised...here is a pic of the embellishments I got from this month's Simply Crafty swap.



I already have a few ideas for next month's natural colour swap. I'm also going to put my name down for the White with 1 blue swap. I should be receiving last month's yellow swap in the mail soon.

Also, a BIG congrats to Petrina for having a LO on the cover of this month's Scrapbooking Memories mag!!

Secret Santa...

How gorgeous is this material bag + tag?!?!



And the soap smells divine!!



Craig and I are going to a wedding this weekend - I love weddings! It's semi-formal attire-I brought a LBD (little black dress) a few months ago. I thought wearing my black halter-neck dress for a 3rd function in less than 12 months might be pushing the boundaries of fashion etiquette! LOL I'm now on the search for a pair of black heels.

Simply Crafty

I had a great time at Simply Crafty yesterday and even managed to get motivated enough to scrap 4 LO!! I absolutely love how they all turned out.






It was a fabulous day - lots of chatting, Secret Santa (will post pics tomorrow) and a Xmas theme swap. I love all the wonderful items the ladies created for the swap! Everyone was very happy with the swap, so we are doing a natural (brown, beige, cream) colour swap for next month.

Mum and I went to see "The Proposal" on Saturday night.

It is the funniest movie I have seen in ages! If you get a chance - definitely go and see it!!

Cooking up a storm...

Mum and I decided to be super organised this week - after going through the recipe books we went grocery shopping this morning and cooked up a weeks worth of meals! We made apricot chicken, osso bucco, pork & broccoli noodles and a prawn, pumpkin & bean dish. I'm just waiting for the osso bucco to finish cooking, then I'm going to make chocolate fudge slice for afternoon tea for Simply Crafty.

We're having a Christmas in July theme for this month's get together for Simply Crafty. I've brought my Secret Santa present - just need to wrap it. We ended up having 10 ladies joining in the swap. I will be working on my swap items this afternoon while the slice is cooking.

Katie, James & Cohan are down for the weekend - so we all had dinner at mum's last night. I can't believe how much Cohan has grown and changed every time we see them. It was close to his bed time by the time we got there so he had a bit of "attitude", but still kept us entertained :o)

Small waterfall album

This is the small album I made for my class sample.

Front cover


Inside

Waterfall Album - Large

I picked up my class samples from Donna yesterday.
Front cover

Inside front cover

Waterfall pages

Slider / hidden journalling

A bit of retail therapy...

My MIL gave me money for my birthday last month to buy a new handbag. While looking around for a bag, I ended up buying this funky overnight bag. Gotta love pink mock croc!! LOL



We had a lovely weekend at home - just chilling out, doing some odd jobs and watching movies. Mum spent most of the weekend with us, so I had a great time playing the Wii with her. It was hilarious - lots of teasing and poor sportsmanship - mainly me running around doing victory dances! ROFLMAO We even started making plans for this year's holiday - we are thinking of going to VIC & SA.

Sunday I scrapped an OTP - I brought some Kaiser funky frames ages ago, but hadn't scrapped them. When I got the new Kaiser Q1 magazine (free with this month's Scrapbook Creations), there were some freebie papers that inspired me to finally scrap the frames. I just have to sand back some rough edges and add a bit of bling and they are all finished.

My scrap class went really well last Wednesday night - the ladies that attended enjoyed themselves. I will have to pick up my samples from Donna this week and take some pics.

Class sneak peek

Just a few sneak peeks for the class I am teaching this Wednesday at Creative Artz.



If you are interested in coming along to the class, please just pop in to the shop and see Donna or give her a call.

A catch up & 2 birthday parties....

Kylie & I spent a lovely day with Cathie on Saturday. It was the last chance for us all to catch up before she heads off to Brisbane next weekend to wait for the arrival of her baby. We helped set up the nursery and pack the baby bay & nappy bag. Since Kylie & I don't have kids we suggested to check that we hadn't forgotten something :o) It's very exciting to think that when we see her next, cath will be a mummy and we will finally meet "bub"!

Today we had 2 birthday parties to attend- Andrew's 8th and Bella's 1st birthday. We spent the morning with Craig's family for Andrew's birthday. It was a lovely and relaxing - the kids playing in the playground at Alexander Park, then a game of cricket with everyone. All the "big kids" (Craig & his brothers) behaved and didn't get competitive LOL Here's the birthday boy taking a turn at bowling.



We spent the afternoon celebrating Bella's 1st birthday. Bella got a battery powered pink jeep for her birthday and I'm really glad that she wasn't too confident about driving it yet. She's a menace in her walker - so I had visions of the cat being run over or knocking the food table flying!! LOL



I spent the rest of the evening making some samples to display for my class I am teaching this Wednesday at Creative Artz. I will take some pics tomorrow.

Boy cupcake picks

I made these cute decorations by first punching a circle out of yellow c/stock. I embossed the circle with a Cuttlebug "Swiss Dots" embossing folder, then lightly sanded to show the white core. I then punched out a smaller circle from blue gingham paper. I cut out the word "boy" in blue c/stock using a Cuttlebug baby themed die and used a duck shaped punch on yellow c/stock. I glued the word and duck on to the blue gingham circle, then adhered that to the yellow circle with a foam dot. I glued the wooden pick onto the back of the yellow circle.

Cath's baby shower

Mum and I got early Saturday and spent the morning going to garage sales - we picked up a variety of goodies - pottery jug, plastic tubs, a photo frame / screen, toys, material,etc. I love spending time bargain hunting with mum. While we were out, Craig spent the day at the Air Show. Craig is a huge military / plane fan, so he was in heaven :o)

In the afternoon we had Cathie's baby shower. Everyone had a lovely time playing games and enjoying a delicious afternoon tea. Cath received a lot of lovely gifts - it made us clucky to see all the little outfits :o) Bub was very quiet - so no tummy rubbing or feeling him kick - party pooper!! LOL





The shower was a blue & yellow duck theme. Kylie made the cupcakes - which were delicious!! She put all the little silver decorations on individually - that must have take longer than the whole baking, cooling and icing process LOL I made the cupcake pics (will share some close up pics soon). Kylie had the fabulous idea of the bowl with blue water & rubber ducks - how cute is that?!?! There was one game where everyone had to write a list of A-Z boy names, Mum and I had the same names for nearly half the list - how freaky!!

Move over Gordon Ramsey...

LOL I have been cooking up a storm tonight - ready for Cathie's baby shower tomorrow!! I still have a few jobs to do tonight, but find myself getting easily distracted by the computer (what's new?!?!) LOL

I finally managed to take some pics while the sun was still out. I finished this LO at Simply Crafty last weekend. I did a bit of machine stitching on this one - just for something different.



I picked this glass bowl / jar up for $1 at a garage sale last weekend - I'm not sure what I will store in there, but I like the fact the lid will keep any dust out.



I always wondered if anyone ever used the embellishments I made for swaps, then this week I found 2 of them (the green butterfly and the pink skull) on 2 different LO by 2 different scrappers - how exciting!!

It's the beginning of the month..so all the new challenges are starting to be announced - hopefully this month won't be as hectic and I will have more scrapping time + feel a bit more motivated.