Challenges

I spent a lovely day scrapping and catching up with everyone at Simply Crafty.

I made this card for Sandie's challenge - Rubons. I used...script - Delish, flourish - Kaszazz and sentiment - Kaiser. Make sure you pop over and have a look at her monthly challenges :)


I also managed to scrap a layout for this month's Kraft It Up challenge.


This layout is a "just because" one - how could I not be inspired to scrap this picture of the gorgeous Miss Isabella?!?!?


Cruise countdown...8 weeks!

Australia Day

What a way to celebrate our great country - fishing & picnic with family and friends! We packed up the car & boat and headed off to Miara for the day. Mum had been looking to buy a boat for the last few months and finally brought one last week - very exciting! It was the perfect opportunity to take it for a run. Mum's boat -


Our boat -


Mum, my aunty and cousin went in her boat for the day - there was a lot of craziness happening there! At one stage we looked over and they were chasing a crab around the bottom of the boat! LOL Mum fell over in the boat about 3 times - she's very sore today :( Good thing she didn't fall out of the boat! LOL It must have been that sort of day, cause I fell over too while I was pulling the crab pots in! LOL I also found out how strong crab claws are when one squeezed my finger in the pliers I was using to try and catch it :(

We put the pots in and did some fishing for a few hours, then I went back to the park just as Cathie, Andrew, Mitchell and Cathie's dad rocked up. We had a chat and set up tables/ chairs. Mitchell was running around and exploring, then we took him down to the river for a swim and play in the sand. With Cathie and I both taking pics and her dad filming him, Mitchell must feel like a celebrity! LOL


After we all had lunch together - Cathie & family headed home to watch cricket and we hopped back into our boats to check the pots and do some more fishing. Unfortunately the river was still pretty dirty from the floods, so no luck fishing :( However we were a lot luckier with the crab pots this year - out of the 18 mud crabs we caught we were able to keep 5!! Last year we caught 30 mud crabs but couldn't keep any. Craig doesn't eat crabs, so I kept one and we shared the rest with family and friends :)


Even though we wore a hat & sun-shirt and kept applying sunscreen, both Craig and I managed to get sun burnt :( I think our sunscreen has gone past its use-by-date - so I will have to replace that before the next fishing trip.

Note to self...if you don't want hubby to know that you were poking the crabs with a wooden spoon- make sure you manage to get it out of their claws before he gets back into the kitchen. You can't deny it when there is wooden spoon being waved out the top of the bucket! :)

Baby Announcment / Thank You cards

One of my goals this year is to include a handmade gift with purchased gifts, so I thought I would make some cards to include with the sweet baby clothes I brought for Bec's new baby.

One thing I struggle with is layout ideas, so I looked through a couple of magazines and found this cute layout idea.


I wanted to make this a multi-purpose gift so I left the details insert separate - that way Bec can either use them as a 'thank you' card or glue the insert in and make them baby announcements.


Like I mentioned before - another one of my goals was to make my cards a little more "finished / polished" looking - so I stamped the cute giraffe onto the envelop and decided to package them all up. Here's the final product...I'm really pleased with how they turned out :)


I had some scraps left over, so decided to make 3 of these little gift tags.


Because I used the same design for all 10 cards - I'm just going to count that as 1 card for my scrapping goal :)

Lots of socialising...

We had a lovely weekend - lots of socialising :) Friday night I went out with Cassie and Elena to listen to a band and have a chat over a few drinks. Saturday we popped over to Mum's to have a look at the boat she has just brought - very exciting :) There was lots of future fishing and camping plans discussed! Sunday we went over to Adam (Craig's brother) and Skye's place for a BBQ and swim - perfect weather to float in around in the pool :) I can now share some exciting news...Skye is 14 weeks pregnant!! We are going to be an aunty/uncle and godparents in late July :)

One last share - here's the handbag I made Cassie for Christmas.


Cruise countdown...9 weeks!

Professional cruise photos

I had completely forgotten to share the professional photos we had taken on the cruise!! There are photographers walking around taking photos all the time on the cruise - especially on theme nights and in the formal dining room. On both formal nights there were 5 different locations set up for photos - so we went to each of them for sittings. Each day we would go to the photo gallery and look at the pics - with about 6 photos for each occasion it was so hard to chose our favourites! These are the ones we absolutely loved and had to have! My favourite is the first one :)

Postcards

I'm so glad I joined Postcrossing - I love opening the mailbox and seeing a postcard :) So far I have recieved 11 cards.






I love the stamps too :)


Cruise countdown...9 weeks!

Cross-stitch

I picked up this cute cross-stitch book mark kit the other day. I used to do a lot of stitching before I discovered scrapping. I needed something to organise all the threads - I was going to use a piece of card with holes punched along the bottom. While I was looking for my circle punch I found my Fiskars Threading Water punch and thought it was perfect - one punch and all the holes were done :)

I'm back...

Arrrgghhh!!! My laptop got a virus and I've been offline for a week - not happy :( A HUGE thanks goes out to the Telstra guy for fixing the problem!! He did a great job and I learnt that he does book-binding - how interesting :)

A quick update of what's been happening lately...Mum finally made it though the roads and arrived home over a week ago :) I had a week off sick :( I had a severe ear infection which left me dizzy, nauseous and generally "out of it". While Craig was helping me into the doctors (and carrying a bucket) another patient asked "Is she sick?" - WTF?!?!? Some people really don't think before stating the obvious LOL I have a few projects and stuff to share - will be updating over the next few days :) My MIL moved into a new place with a pool - so we spent last Sunday with Craig's family while they had a swim (no swimming for me - thanks to the ear infection).

How cool is this esky?!?!?! Craig won it in a raffle!!!

It's a girl!

Congratulations to Bec and Dale!! Isabella Christine French was born this morning - 7lbs 4oz. Mum and baby are both going well :)




Cruise countdown...10 weeks!

Kylie's birthday

Yesterday it was Kylie's birthday - so we packed up some food and drinks and headed over to Cathie's for a swim and birthday lunch to celebrate. It was so nice to see the sun out :)

A picture of the birthday girl playing with Mitchell's magna-doodle / drawing board :) I have to admit this toy was a source of entertainment for all of us - we all had to have a play / draw on it! LOL

After some nibbles and catching up with everyone's Christmas & NYE - we hopped in the pool for a swim. Once again Mitchell's toys provided a lot of entertainment - water pistols are lots of fun! LOL Poor Mitchell tended to be everyone's main target :) Got a few pics of us all in the pool - some not so flattering, so won't be sharing here :) Also got lots of pics of Mitchell - he is so cute! After our swim we had lunch, then more chatting :)


My first card for the year! One down - 39 to go!

Scrappy goals for 2011

Ok, here it goes...if I publish it here, then I will hopefully be motivated to actually meet my goals.

Layouts - 24
That's only 2 per month...
*Will start to enter more challenges
*Continue to use up my old / current stash
*Re-organise storage
*Use some of the swap embellishments that I have been hoarding
*Make more of my own handmade embellishments
*Do some stamping on my pages
*Keep my scrapping table tidy - less motivated to scrap when it's a mess

Cards - 40
*Will continue to ink up and use stamps that have never been used in my stash
*Start using my embossing folders - have a huge stash that I don't use as much as I should
*I feel my cards are missing that "little something" and could look a bit better - will try to work out on that

OTP - 3
*Will stop hoarding that box of Kaiser wooden BTP and actually start using them!
*Will make a mini album of our travel photos

Let's see how I go..... :)

Happy New Year!

We had a quiet night at home -we saw the new year in, then went to bed. What a pair of party animals! LOL Cohan was more of a party animal than us, he didn't go to bed till after 12.30am! :) I've decided to do something new this year and set myself some "scrapping goals" - will be revealed soon :)

Flood update - Mum is still stuck out at Blackwater - there is still no date on when thhe roads will be open yet. Luckily Kylie managed to get home yesterday.

This was a Christmas present I made for Donna - now she has opened it, I can share pics :)

Cruise countdown...11 weeks!