Busy Busy Busy....

Wow, we are fast approaching the end of April already and life is starting to really speed up. There is so much going on at the moment. Both at school/work and at home. The kids just did their cross country for this year, and while I didn't make it along to see the girls (I know what a bad mother am I!!!) I did go along to see Liam's first run. He didn't do too badly either, he ran 17th out of all the prep boys ( I am guessing there are about 50 prep boys all up) so not a bad effort at all! The girls did well with their runs too. Here is the little man in action, and he even manages a smile for the camera! Then a couple of days later Niamh had to dress up for school for their Living History event. They could dress up as anyone from ancient history, so of course Niamh decided she needed to be a goddess (nothing less would do of course!) and said she wanted to dress up as Aphrodite. So guess which poor mug had to design a costume??!! I spent last weekend cutting and sewing, but I guess at least we have a dress ready for Erin when she gets to grade 6! I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a pattern from a school friend of Niamh's so it made the whole process a little easier, and I must say the result was pretty good! So , without further ado, here is the goddess Aphrodite... Things are pretty busy at the shop right now too with the retreat on this weekend. I will be out there on Sunday playing with inks and stuff so that will be fun. Along with all the preparation for the retreat comes all the new goodies that come in to go to the retreat! I have some new Fancy Pants Rusted Sun sitting on my desk to play with and also I have just finished playing with KI Memories Enchanted range, and a whole lot of EK Success border punches. I have also got my hands on one of the hands free kit for the Slice! It is absolutely wonderful, just fantastic!! Make sure you get in quick if you want one of these, I had a Slice class yesterday and two were sold straight away! Here is the page I created using the KI papers, and border punches. Oh and a card too, now that I am in the habit of making one each time! I thought I would also drop in a few photos from Easter. These were taken at my SIL's when we were there for our Easter catch up. We did a little egg hunt for the kids too. Oh, and I forgot to do something the last time I posted. The lovely Anne sent me a blog award and I forgot to put the details on my blog. So, thank you for the lovely award Anne! Now, I am going to be a little bit naughty and not do all of the "required" things so please forgive me.... (I guess having done some of these in the past I get stumped after a while!) This is what I am supposed to do: 1. List the top 10 things that make me happy 2. List 5 trivia things about myself. 3. Share the award with only 5 people and ask them to do the same 4. Link the blogs you choose and link the blog of the person who gave it to you!! OK, here goes: The top 10 things that make me happy, in no particular order: 1. Chocolate 2. My family (most of the time ;) ) 3. Taking photos 4. Scrapping 5. Reading about photography 6. Chocolate 7. New scrapping stuff 8. New camera equipment 9. Did I mention chocolate??!! 10. Watching mindless TV every now and then 5 Trivia things about me (now this is where I start to get stumped, so I may repeat things): 1. My background is in Physics and I wanted to be an astronaut 2. I love crime shows and have been watching Law and Order and its spin offs since the first show aired in Australia 3. I also love crime thriller novels 4. I love watching Make Me a Supermodel (and similar shows), to see the photographers in action (oh and see the bitchy in fighting too!) 5. hmmm....... uhmmm..... I have always loved crafty things, I even still have some great colouring pencils from when I was a kid! This is when I get naughty, I am not going to pass this on. Mainly because most of the blogs I follow are either likely to get one from someone else or they just don't update as often as they used to! Sorry about that.... Anyway, one last thing before I go. I played around with off camera flash over the Easter break and got some great shots of the kids. You will probably recognise one of the shots from the Bo-Bunny page I recently did! So with that I am done for now. Have a great ANZAC day long weekend. Katie

Been playing with inks!

Well, I have been playing with distress and alcohol inks lately and I must say it is a lot of fun to be able to just play. I have been swatting up on some techniques with these inks for some upcoming classes at Scrapbook City, and other than being loads of fun it has been a relatively expensive exercise as I realise how many new things that I must have!!! These cards were made as samples using the alcohol inks, with the last two being based on ones made by Jennifer McGuire. The classes will use some of these techniques. I haven't got any photos of my beautiful butterflies yet, but I will try and get some up. These other butterflies use the same great Hero Arts stamp used above, but are coloured with distress inks and look amazing (even if I do say so myself!!). These two projects were also for Scrapbook City to show off the new Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi range. This collection is so easy to use for boys pages even though it is more aimed at us mums and our photo taking habits! In both the card and the layout I have used two great new EK Success border punches as well. I love my border punches and couldn't wait for these new releases to be in stock. These have been selling fast and I am not sure they are loaded in the on-line store but give them a call if you are after one. I do know that the Bracket (used in the card) has sold out for now so get in quick! I have also completed the April challenge for Out of the Hat. This month the criteria is:

1. Use at lease one black and white photo 2. Use a stamped image somewhere 3. Use pop dots

Lucky for me these are all things that I do regularly so the page came together pretty quickly. I also got to play with my new Pink Paisley papers!! I have also played with some Christmas papers from October Afternoon and some old photos of Erin at pre-school, that should tell you how long I have had those ones! Erin is now grade 4.... I created some rolled fabric flowers from calico and sprayed them with smooch ink and the holly leaves were cut using the Slice and the Fa La La card. And lastly for today, here is a sneak peak of my next Slice class. This class focuses on the Think Pink design card and its features and uses the lovely Kaiser Craft La Di Da papers. Well, I think that will do for now. Catch you soon!