Sandie's April Challenge

Oops - I'm running a bit behind this month! This month's challenge over at Sandie's blog was to use heat embossing.

Easter weekend

We had a fantastic weekend - lots of relaxing :) Bec and Bella arrived Sunday morning. It was wonderful to finally meet Miss Bella, she is such a placid and cuddly baby - so lots of cuddles and kisses :)


We did lots of cooking, watched a movie, did some scrapping and spent time catching up. We cooked up a storm - making hot cross buns, sushi, quiche and stroganoff.


I brought Bec a mini album and helped her to scrap it. While Bec scrapped, I whipped up this card using her scraps. Sorry for the blurry pic - very overcast and not the best condition for taking pics :(




We even managed to catch up with my cousins (who were visiting from Cairns) for lunch before we dropped Bec & Bella off at the train station on Tuesday.

Craig has started his new job Wednesday and so far is enjoying it :)

Easter punch art

I decided to create some Easter gift cards to go with the kids eggs this year. I love the Stampin' Up! Good Egg stamp set and used that as the inspiration for my punch art. I'm really pleased with my first attempt at designing my own punch art!!




After I made the cards I quickly whipped up some basic bag toppers using my top note die and some Eater bunny themed paper :)

A change of jobs!

As I mentioned in this post Salmat is closing it's doors next week, so everyone in the Bundy centre has been busy job hunting for the last 6 weeks. Craig made the decision to wait until after our holiday to concentrate on job hunting. I'm pleased to share that after 2 job interviews Craig has offered been offered a sales consultants job at a Telstra shop!!! He was told Wednesday and had his last day at Salmat yesterday. He has 5 days off for Easter, then starts his new job Wednesday :)

Self saucing puddings...

I've had a fun filled and busy week this week :) I spent Wednesday afternoon with Cohan. Katie & James had a couple of jobs to do - so Cohan and I had a play date. We played with the dogs, made popcorn (the dogs ate more of it than we did LOL), ran around the backyard, watched a movie snuggled up on Aunty's bed, danced around the lounge room and ate some chocolate (that's the perk of being an aunty - feed them up on chocolate and give them back to their parents LOL)! I don't know who was more tired at the end - me, the dogs or Cohan?!? He he




With Katie & James and some family friends visiting - we've had dinner out at Mum's for the last 2 nights. I thought it was an excellent time to try the 2 new self-saucing pudding reciepes I found at Taste.com!. I made a butterscotch pudding and a chocolate pudding! Both were delicious and I will definately be making them again!


I'm looking forward to this weekend - Becca and Isabella are coming down for 3 days!!! Bella is already 3 months old and we haven't even seen her yet - so I'm really excited about this visit!!

Lucy's Cards - Giveaways!

Make sure you pop over to Lucy's Cards - she is having 6 days of giveaways :)

Quilling creations

As promised, here are the quilling cards & projects I made while on the cruise. It was very popular on this cruise - on the last one there would be about 10 max people at the classes - this time there were about 30+ people! I was really happy to learn a lot more advanced skills - especially the gorgeous roses - and different projects (boxes, basket cards, etc).

What have I been up to?

Things have been busy since we've been home... Monday was Donna's birthday, so I joined her and some friends for afternoon tea at the local shopping centre. I made this little gift box for Donna's birthday present (a necklace).


Afterwards we did some retail therapy - I brought a pasta machine on sale at Kmart!! Something I've wanted for ages...now I just need to learn how to make pasta :)


During the week I made 3 samples birthday invites for Elena's 40th birthday party. After Elena chose her invite - I spent the next couple of days, cutting, embossing and glittering :)


The 2 invites that didn't make the cut - I just replaced the '40' on the card and turned them into birthday / wedding cards to add to my stash :) The martini card is a gate fold (something I have never tried before) with a belly band and the wedding card is also a gate fold with the image part glued to the left hand side.




Thursday I went for a drive with mum to Bam Bam Springs to pick up Cohan. Katie & James are heading to NSW for a wedding (it's child-free) - so Cohan is spending a couple of days with Grandma :) Instead of coming into Bundy - mum decided it was faster for them if she met them out at Bam Bam Springs, pick up Cohan, then they could keep heading down the highway. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to spend time with Cohan - cause I ended up sick for the last 3 days with that awful vertigo / nausea bug I had a few months ago :(

Day 11-15 - At Sea

Day 11 - This was supposed to be a 1/2 day scenic cruising through Fiordlands, but due to 9m swells, gale force winds and bad weather the captain made the decision not to put the passengers & boat at risk. We spent most of the day in the Dome - reading, chatting and even a bit of napping :) After quilling there was "Karaoke Power Hour" in the Bengal Bar - so I had a sing :) That night after dinner we arrived back at the cabin to find invitations to the "Captain's Cocktail Party" - how exciting!

Day 12 -We went to a napkin and towel folding demonstration in the Show Lounge and then stayed to watch the live culinary demonstration.


Quilling class then another delicious afternoon tea in the formal dining room. Then we got dressed up for the Captain's cocktail party in the Dome. We had pictures taken with the Captain and nibblies & champagne. The Captain gave a bit of a speech and awarded 3 couples for the most cruises - one couple had been on 135 cruises!! We listened to the live band for awhile, then went to dinner.


Day 13 - Another lazy day - quilling and relaxing in the Dome. We went to see the Pacific Cirque "Transformation" show in the Atrium, then to see Ash Puriri in the Show Lounge - both great shows!




Day 14 - We went through all the professional photos in the photo gallery and picked our faves - will share them soon. More quilling and T-shirt painting, then off to the Show Lounge to watch the final of "Pacific Popstar". There were some amazing contestants - the passenger that won was amazing!! After that we wandered up to sit out on the deck and played "Name that Song - TV theme songs". We came equal first with another team (hmmm..think we watch too much TV LOL), so we had which the other team won. We packed our bags ready to be collected :(


We had one last delicious dinner in the formal dining room where our waiter Rageesh entertained us with napkin folding :)


After dinner we went to see one more show "Starry Starry Night" in the Show Lounge - with Ash Puri and Pearson & Harvey, then off to karaoke where I had another sing.

Day 15 - Up at 4.30am and watching as we sail up the Brisbane river and dock at the terminal. Had breakfast and then waited till it was our groups turn to disembark. I n all the craziness we managed to leave one of mum's bags at the terminal - oops :(

Day 10 - Dunedin

It was our first cold day (10 degrees) and rainy weather - so we rugged up in jumpers and scarves and caught the shuttle bus into Dunedin. We spent the whole day wandering around looking at all the historical buildings, churches, etc.








The Railway Station was amazing! I loved the gorgeous ticket windows and the beautiful mosaic work.






We had booked a tour at the Cadbury's Chocolate factory. We were all a bit disappointed with this tour as we were told it would be a working tour, but as we walked around the factory none of the machines were working (due to maintenance work), so we only got to watch videos of the processes :(




After lunch was a bit more walking around and sightseeing.






Then we went to the Museum, where Mum and I went into the live butterfly exhibition and Craig wandered around looking at the other exhibitions.




After all the sightseeing we did LOTS of souvenir shopping, then caught the shuttle bus back to the boat.

Day 9 - Akaroa

We woke up to find the boat docked in the enormous bay at Akaroa! I found out that Akaroa lies inside the eroded craters of an old volcano, now flooded by the Pacific Ocean.


We took a 20 minute ride in the tenders (lifeboats) to the wharf.


We booked a 2 hour nature cruise to see the rare Hector’s dolphins, NZ fur seals and white flippered penguins, plus all the beautiful rock formations.








We were lucky enough to see lots of dolphins, but unfortunately they were too quick for me to get any photos :( I was just so happy to see the dolphins :) Our tour guide explained that seeing the dolphins is like walking through bamboo and seeing a Panda or walking through the jungle and seeing a Bengal Tiger - I didn't realise how rare they were! Luckily Craig managed to get lots of footage on the video camera, so once I work out how to load that up I will share it :) ! We also got to see a couple of the penguins floating / swimming around in the water - they were all out hunting for food.

After the cruise we went for a walk around Akaroa and had a look in the shops. I brought some NZ theme ribbon in a little gift shop :) Craig was surprised that I managed to buy scrapping stuff - does that man not know me by now?!?!? He he We were told to have fish & chips at the local shop - so we waited in line for about 1 hour to order our lunch! It's a VERY popular place :) We had a combo deal - fish, chips, hot dog (pluto pup) on a stick and drink - definately worth waiting for :) Found this sign of the Hector's dolphins as we were walking around - this is how big they get! :)


We took the tender back to the boat and spent a few hours relaxing in the Dome before dinner, then off to bed for an early night.