Happy birthday!

Today is Craig's birthday!! What a way to celebrate - I'm so jealous :) I've been wanting to use this set of Kaiser stamps for ages and thought this would be the best time :) Craig's fave colour is red - so I used that as the basis, then I found the striped paper and it reminded me of air-mail envelops - perfect for travel themed cards! As usual, after I made the first card I made 2 more while I had all the supplies out.




I liked the 2nd card the most - so that's the one I'm giving to Craig :)

Blog links

I have a HUGE list of blogs bookmarked on my computer that I love to visit daily. There are way too many to put on my blog-list, so I thought I would share some of them. I've found most of my favourite blogs on other blog lists :) These are a variety of scrapping, cardmaking, sewing and humourous blogs...

Patty's Stampin' Spot

Soapbox Creations

Clean & Simple

Stamp with Heather

Crazy things parents say

My Little World

KB Papercraft

The Love Supreme

KWerner Designs Blog

Failbook

Guest blogger

The lovely Kel from My Favourite Places blog asked me if I would like to be a guest blogger on her new blog :) She asked so nicely and is such a sweetie, that I couldn't say no LOL Make sure you pop over there to have a look and say hello!

Packed and ready to go!!

The bags are packed (fingers crossed I haven't forgotten anything LOL) - check. Passports and tickets in my handbag - check. Camera cards emptied, batteries charged and flash drives packed - check. I think we are ready to go!!! Just need to colour my hair and I'm done :)

See you all in 2 weeks!!

Cruise countdown...1 sleep!!

Three more sleeps!!

OMG! I'm starting to get super excited now!! Still packing my bags and a bit more research online for tourist attractions :) I brought a new hair dye - now I just need to find the time to use it LOL Craig is officially on holidays now - so he will be packing his bags tomorrow.

I have been a busy little bee and arranged for some posts to appear while I'm away - so make sure you pop back :)

Cruise countdown...3 sleeps!!

What a Sunday!

Yesterday was a busy day - up early, wash the dogs, ice the cake I baked Saturday night, pack my scrap gear, then off to Simply Crafty for a bit of scrapping and lot of socialising :)

As usual I went with the best intentions to scrap specific challenges, but got distracted chatting with everyone :) I did manage to scrap a layout though. A few months ago Cathie gave me a photo an d a kit of papers, cardstock & brads and asked me to scrap a layout for her. After a lot of procrastinating from me and a bit of teasing from Cathie - I finally sat down and scrapped the layout! Cathie is happy with the end product - especially since this is her first LO with banners :)


I was just starting to make some more owls (yes, I know - I have an addiction LOL) when Craig rang to say that one of his brother's had been involved in a motorbike accident :( We went up to the hospital and waited with the rest of his family while Luke had surgery. Apparently Luke and some mates had been out bush riding their dirt bikes when Luke came off his bike and the handlebars went through his groin. It grazed his artery and the handlebars went the full length into his body and along his leg - eek! He had to be airlifted back to the hospital. They were in such a remote place that the accident happened at 10.30am, but by the time the guys rode far enough to get mobile reception, then the chopper arrived - he didn't get to the hospital till after 1pm, then straight into surgery. The doctors have told him he is very lucky to be alive, had he pierced his artery he was gone! Luke's definitely on the mend - he's been released form hospital and is back home today :)

Cruise countdown...5 sleeps!

Getting ready...

I started packing my suitcase this week! To be honest I've been putting things (toiletries, travel medication, etc) aside for months - I like to be organised LOL I brought 3 new dresses in the after-Christmas sales, but I'm pretty much taking the same wardrobe as the last cruise (plus a few pairs of jeans and jumpers LOL)!


This afternoon Mum, Craig & I spent a few hours discussing specific destinations / tourist attractions we wanted to see at each port. We have made our final decisions and everything is jotted down in my travel journal :)


Cruise countdown...7 sleeps!

I've gone a little owl crazy....

My Stampin' Up! owl punch arrived last week and I have been busy creating lots of little owls :) I thought I had better create some cards to use up my growing stash of owls LOL

Card 1 - I created this card for this month's challenge over at Sandie's blog. The criteria was leaves and Autumn colours. I decided to make my own patterned paper, by stamping leaves then colouring in with watercolours.


Card 2 - I thought I would make another card using the leftovers from card 1.


Card 3 - I found this cute little Aussie owl idea over at Kez's blog. I CASEd most of the elements of Kez's card - I thought this was such a great male card. I made 2 of these cards - just trying to top up my male card stash.


Card 4 - These cute nurse & doctor owls have been popping up around blog-land and I thought they were perfect for a "Get Well" card. I also made 2 of these cards since I don't have any Get Well cards in my stash.


Card 5 - I originally started creating this card with a different embellishment idea in mind - but once I made the owl I realised it was a perfect match :)


Card 6 - I CASEd this card layout from a card in the current Stampin' Up! IB&C.


Cruise countdown...11 sleeps!

Where did the weekend go?

This week and the weekend seemed to fly by!! Every spare minute was spent gardening, pricing items and setting up for the garage sale we had on Saturday morning.

Friday night the girls came over to do some scrapping / cardmaking - as usual I seemed to be doing more chatting than crafting! LOL Cathie wanted to CASE this card, so I decided to make one too.


Saturday morning we were up at 5am to put up signs and some last minute organising - I'm so glad the rain held off till after lunch when we were ready to finish up anyway :) The garage sale took 4 months to finally happen - Mum & I decided in November to go through our houses to de-clutter and reorganise. We set a date for the garage sale in late November, but between Christmas, floods, renovating, moving, and general rainy weather it kept getting delayed. I'm so glad it finally happened - this is what my lounge room looked like!!


It looked like something out of the TV show "Hoarders"! LOL It was actually tidier - we had all the items stacked up against one wall - but made this big mess going through the boxes and pricing all the items :)

Sunday morning I was up early again and packed up the leftover stuff from the garage sale into boxes then put them in Mum's car to take to the op-shops. Then we went off to the PCYC markets to visit Helen's stall and buy some very cute stamps and birds embellishments. After that we borrowed Mike's trailer, loaded up the 2 futons we sold at the garage sale and delivered them. All of jobs were done by then, so the rest of the afternoon was spent watching DVDs.

Cruise countdown...13 sleeps!

We've had better weeks...

Monday morning Craig was called into work early to be told some news...Telstra is not renewing their contract and Salmat (the centre where he works) is closing at the end of April :( That means 107 will be out of work in 6 weeks. Salmat is closing 3 other centres and over 700 people are losing their jobs. It's been all over the news.

It's like a double whammy - only 12 months ago my role was made redundant and now we are going through all the same emotions, stress and sleepless nights again :(

Quilled flower cards

I had a go at making quilled flower cards - using more of the white embossed cards. I used the instructions in the quilling kit to create the flowers. I think I might buy some more quilling strips and find some other flowers / designs and make a few more cards!










Cruise countdown...18 sleeps!

Masculine cards

We had a busy weekend :) Saturday we went to a 30th birthday BBQ for Craig's brother. In between housework and making a cob loaf to take to the BBQ, I made 2 masculine cards - one for Luke and one for my FIL. I know I'm not the only one that struggles with male cards - no flowers, pretty ribbons, etc :( I am pretty happy with my FIL card.


I wanted to do more on Luke's card, but ran out of time :(


I have been slowly adding to my card stash. Normally I make cards as I need them, but find I am usually un-motivated or have little time to create something I am super happy with. This year I want to have a large stash of cards I can choose from (didn't happen this weekend though LOL). Might make it my goal to work on more male cards.

Sunday started off with a drama - driving to the shops and witnessed a car crash :( Fortunately no-one was hurt - just shocked and major damage to both cars. The rest of the day was uneventful - just some more cardmaking which I'll share tomorrow :)

Cruise countdown...19 sleeps!

Watercolouring

My new set of aqua brushes arrived this week, so I had to have a little play with the Bentley Bear stamps and watercolour pencils :) I brought the set of embossed cards (packet of 8 for $2.50) from a dollar shop - aren't they gorgeous?!?! I did attempt to ink / colour the embossed design, but I decided to leave it plain so the image stood out more.










Cruise countdown...23 sleeps!

Scrapbook Apprentice Update

I have been meaning to tell everyone that Scrapbook Apprentice has been delayed. We had a break over the Christmas period, then it was further delayed.

Due to the recent floods & storms throughout Australia, we regret to inform you that the Scrapbook Apprentice Australia has been put on hold. More information when it's available.

Hopefully I will know soon if I have made it through to the next round.