News....

Well, I have some news to share. I have been selected to be on the design team for Out of the Hat! Yay! This will be the second time that I have been asked to be a part and I am thrilled! It is one of my favourite challenge blogs and probably the only one I am guaranteed to complete each month.

If you haven't ever checked it make sure you go and do it now! The March criteria are:

1. Use Twine
2. Use a number in your title
3. Make your own journalling spot (for example use stamping etc....)

I will be onto my creation very soon. So keep posted for that.

While I am here I thought I would pop up a few photos. The finished front deck looks great, and we have had many comments on how good it looks too. The only thing we have left to do now is painting and oiling the timber.

The roof and screening make a huge difference to the front room too. I can't wait to get a little setting out there so I can sit and sip cocktails and watch the world go by!

The next photo is from last Monday, just before that huge storm hit. I don't think the photo quite does it justice, it felt darker and more ominous than it looks. But it gives you an idea of how it looked just before the clouds burst and the wind and thunder began.

Well, that's it for now. Catch you soon. Thanks for dropping by.

The Renovation Story continues...

I thought I should do some updating on our renovations as the last time I added anything was BF (before floods). It seems so long ago already. Anyway, the day before we evacuated because of rising flood waters we had new carpets go in through the house including our new bedroom. The fellow who laid the carpet was great, like having your grandfather or a favourite uncle in the house. We ended up choosing a mid-grey colour that seemed to go well with all colours through the house and we are very pleased with the results. Here are a couple of pictures, one from our room and one from the hallway. Somewhere in an earlier post you can see what the carpets used to look like!

 

The other renovations underway is the replacement of our rotting front deck. We decided to also added a roof to help protect this new deck and provide some more shade to the house and also lift its street appeal. So, this is what we started with.

Then, just before the drenching rains and rising waters, the deck was removed and the house looked a little strange. It was funny how people that needed to come to the house responded upon seeing no way to get to the front door too!

Then the new deck took shape, the stairs were replaced, the roofing structure went on and the roof itself.

This is where we are now, waiting for the last little bits to be completed, guttering, screening and painting. Then we can start returning to lives without building work going on! Looks a little different now doesn't it??!! The last thing to be done is a "fix" of the kitchen, but we are waiting for our local Bunnings to re-open after being affected by the floods before we can do that.

I also, finally, have back to school photos! (But don't tell anyone, I kept forgetting to take one and I didn't until the last day of week 2!!) They have all grown so much in a year. This is Niamh's last year at primary school which is a bit mind blowing and Liam is now in grade 1 (I can't believe my baby is turning 7 this year!), with Erin in grade 5. Each year seems to fly past faster than the last.

To finish off, here is a layout I did this week for the Out of the Hat challenge site. The criteria for this month were: include a cloud or clouds, include a tree, use masking or misting. I had fun with this one, and played with my Cricut again! I used the Cricut to cut the tree, and also the clouds and grass that I used as masks, and of course I used my Ranger re-inkers in mister bottles for the misting! I am really pleased with how this one turned out and feel I am getting back in the groove!

Well, cheers for now.
Katie

Happy New Year!!

Can you believe how quickly the Christmas and New Year period disappears?? So welcome to 2011 and may it be joyful and prosperous for you all!

Right now, along with many Queenslanders, however I simply wish for less rain and less flooding. But we are some of the lucky ones. We have not been washed away and we can still get outside of our home.

I thought that I should come and share some more renovation updates with you. We are very close to being able to completely move into our new bedroom! Yay! As we speak the carpets are being laid. The whole house is undergoing a facelift with new carpets going into each bedroom and to the hall as well. We even took the opportunity to clean all the walls while the rooms were empty over the weekend. The painting is also complete in the new room and on the deck and lighting is connected in the new room also. So only a few little things to finish off, like the deck lighting and fan and the airconditioners. Lucky it has not been so hot this summer that we were desperate for the aircon! So here are some pictures. I thought I would do before and after shots so there are photos of all the rooms and the hallway looking bare and displaying really gross old dirty carpets. The bottom two shows the new room with its fresh paint and also the ensuite all finished. We have been using the ensuite since just before Christmas and let me tell you neither of us will be able to go back to the old shower after using the new rainhead! It is magnificent and we are thinking of changing the old one to something a little similar to share the love around! Which leads me to the fact that we are going to give the old bathroom a small makeover in the coming months too. Which also reminds me, we have no front deck at the moment! They came and ripped it down the other day and the house looks really strange now. I will get a photo as soon as it stops raining enough to get outside, and who knows when that will be??!!

Niamh's old room, soon to be Liam's room.

Our long hall way. And despite the carpets it has never looked this clean!

Liam's and Erin's room, soon to be Erin's alone.

Our old master, soon to be Niamh's room.

The new room, looking almost complete!

And the finished bathroom. We just need to move all our stuff in now!

So that about wraps it up for now. I do have a couple of pages that I have done. One for the Scrap the Girls January challenge and one that I didn't quite finish in time for their December challenge. But I am waiting for better light to photograph them!

Santa Photo

Well, the kids had their photo with Santa the other day. I am not sure how much longer this will continue. Niamh is already saying she is too old for Santa! Anyway, I will keep pushing as long as I can! I have some more renovation photos too! As I mentioned the tapware is in place, and here is the shower I was talking about... pretty amazing hey! And the tapware on the vanities, simple but effective... And most importantly, a second working toilet in the house... You know you have picked good colours and fittings when even the builders make a comment on how good the ensuite looks!! As we speak undercoating and prep work for the painting is going on. So by the end of the week the bedroom should be all painted and next week the outside, and the deck sealed. Yay! Some where in there too the electrician will be back to give us power! Then the hard work begins... the sorting, culling and moving (not to mention carpets, but that will be after Christmas now). That is all for now. Catch you later. Katie

Schools Out for Summer.....

So have you got that song in your head now? I have!! Well, the kids have finished another year at school so we now brace ourselves for 6 weeks of holidays. But as things seem to be going lately this will disappear all too quickly too. The Christmas countdown is well and truly on and we are also looking forward to the finishing touches of the renovations being completed so we can begin the moving around. (Not to mention great big clean up and purge!) I have some more photos to share of the renos too. Since last time we have an almost complete deck with railings and screening all but done. Just sealing the timber and lights and fan fittings to be done. The room too is close to completion with tiling in the bathroom complete and the vanities, tapware and toilet in place. Painting and electrical fit out along with wardrobe doors, mirrors and carpets are the last things to be done. We can't wait!! There is now a roof on the deck and external walls on the bedroom, along with louvers and windows. The screening on the deck is underway here. Looking pretty swish and we cannot wait until it is usable. Railings on the stairs make them safe now! Tiles in the ensuite start to finish this area off. Here are the vanities, one each with ceasarstone tops. I need to take more photos showing the tapware! The shower looks awesome!! Remember last post I mentioned Liam had lost another tooth, well here is the toothless boy. And Niamh did pose for a photo with her cast on. We were lucky to find after a week in plaster and a second lot of x-rays that there didn't seem to be a break, just possibly some tendon damage. So no more plaster, which is a relief in this heat. I have also been playing around with some photoshop actions I purchased from here with a "hipstamatic" look. I have enjoyed seeing people with their i-phone versions but as I don't have an i-phone nor any desire to own one I thought I would look for a photoshop version! Here is another one with lovely Erin. This next one is following a "forumla" in Lightroom to create a similar effect. It has its own appeal too, so I turned it into my own Lightroom Preset. I think Liam in his funky glasses added to the effect! Here is another snap I took a couple of weeks ago. We had just come home from shopping to find a rainbow across the sky, and here it looks like it is landing at our house. I searched for the pot of gold but had no luck finding it! And lastly, I celebrated my birthday this week. Aside from the cricut I mentioned earlier I received some great cartridges to use in it, some gold class movie vouchers and a steam mop! I know a steam mop isn't that exciting, but it was something I really wanted and I can't wait until the building work is done so I can clean! Sad really, isn't it??!! Oh and I received these when I was least expecting them! Andrew can be so sneaky sometimes! So that sums up things here. I am sure I will be back soon with more reno news! Til next time, Katie

More Photos

Hello! Life is getting very busy here as we start winding up the year at school and continue with our building works. I feel like I spend my time split between home answering questions about what way to do something or what colour and so on or down at the school at one of the kids activities. Well, I guess we will be on holidays soon and the building will be over so then I will be complaining about moving rooms, and kids at home!! No winning really is there??!! So, what has happened since I last updated. Well, Scrapbook City is on its way to closing its doors for good. Which is sad, but the right thing for Leisa and Kerri. I will miss having a little haven to go to and just chat if nothing else. But I have gained many wonderful friendships out of my relationship with this shop and I know these will continue. If you are in Brisbane and want a bargain however, I suggest you head over as they currently have 40% off storewide (with a few exceptions like cricut cartridges and the like, but these are still at fabulous prices!) and stock is almost walking out the door! On the Scrapbooking bent, I am now the proud owner of a Cricut machine!! This is my birthday/christmas present from Andrew and the kids! Cool hey?! I was told, that since I kept talking about this machine and that I was hard to buy for that perhaps I should just buy one!! Who was I to say no! I am also getting a Gypsy to go with it from my in-laws for my birthday! I am feeling like one lucky girl at the moment. Now I just need five minutes to be able to sit down and scrap! Liam lost another tooth. I feel like we have a hot line to the tooth fairy at the moment, between Liam and Niamh I think six teeth have come out in about two months! Speaking of Niamh, she has just come back from camp, where she was not allowed to do very much as she has a cast on her arm! Last Sunday while scootering at her cousins house she had a fall and now has a suspected fracture.... So Monday we go back to the doctor, get the cast off, go back to x-ray then go back to see if we need to put another cast on. No wonder I am exhausted all that running around! (I am trying to get a photo, but she doesn't like the camera very much at the moment! I only have one on my mobile so I will have to download that!) The house is coming along. We are starting to get to the details now. The room has walls inside and out, the bathroom has been waterproofed and tiles will start to go down (hopefully) tomorrow, the roof is on over the deck and railings should start to go up soon. So it won't be too long and we will have a functioning room and deck! I can't wait for the deck to be done. I have a photo to share, but it is a little behind with where things really are. I have photos on the camera, just need to download them! Roof frame for deck is up and getting ready to clad the outside of the bedroom. I had a chance to visit my newest niece Alice. She is lovely, so small and basically just slept the whole time we were there! I have some photos of her with various combinations of people. Proud Grandma with Alice New big sister Jasmine with her baby Alice and big cousin Niamh. Life is tough when you are little...... I took some Christmas photos for my sister in law last weekend so she could make cards. I always seem to get a classic photo of my niece Rachel when I do this. I had the giggles when I saw this photo in camera, let alone after I had added to it! And not to be left out, brother Dan had a classic too! Til next time! Katie

So, I told you it wouldn't last!

The regular blogging that is! But it is only just over a week, so it's not too bad. So since last time, the reno has come along some, we now have a roof!!! Something we feel very relieved by. Plumbing and wiring has gone in, and there is a big hole in the wall where windows and doors used to be getting ready to be closed off! Aside from this, I have a new niece! My brother and his wife welcomed a second little girl to their family. I am really looking forward to meeting her this weekend, so until now I haven't been able to take any photos myself. But thank goodness for the digital age and facebook, which means I have seen lots of photos of little Alice already. Niamh is so hanging out to see her new cousin, I just hope Jasmine doesn't get jealous! I have scrapped a little. With so many other things going on it has been hard to find time to sit and do anything, even though there have been times where I really wanted to! So lets do some show and tell with photos. From the front, you can see our new roof peaking out! From the back you can see the safety rail and most importantly all those lovely tiles over the new section!! So, this is one of the big holes in the wall! It is covered at the moment, but not finished. The outside is clad with builders paper as we wait for external cladding and then the internal walls to go in..... things are happening! So, some scrapbooking! Using some Easter photos taken with my mobile phone. New baby Alice. Photo taken from Facebook from Richard or Jenny's album, edited slightly by me! Another photo "borrowed" from Facebook. Love this moment between Jasmine and her new baby sister! And this is little Edith! Well, not so little now in comparison to Alice. She is growing so quickly and every time I see her I swear she has grown just a little too much. So that is us for now. Til later. Katie

Renovations underway

Another busy month or so has flown past here for me and there has been a lot happening! Our renovations have finally begun and it won't be too long (weather permitting) before Andrew and I have our new room to move into and the new deck will be ready to be christened! The kid's have been particularly interested in the whole process watching everything the builders are up to and checking progress every day after school. I have been recording the progress myself (as any good scrapbooker would!!) and have a few photos to share showing the process. Well, this is the "before" shot. Just how it looked before the work began. It doesn't take a long time to remove something, and the house just looked plain odd without the deck there! The area now level with holes dug for posts and channels for plumbing, just waiting for the slab to go down. And then it rained and it rained and it poured! See the holes where the poles are, that are to the top with rainwater? Well these holes were about 2m deep!!! There was a lot of rain! I reckon that the plumbing channel would have been around half a meter deep and it was full too! We joked that it was a new lap pool just the right size for Liam! Slab finally down, poles in place and the sun out again! It didn't take long for joists and framework to go up! Well, that will do for now, there are still more to come, but there is only so many construction photos you want to share in one go! On the scrapping side things have been busy. I did two all day classes last month focused around Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas techniques. I used some of his ideas and techniques to create 12 cards using the wonderful Australian Dark Room Door stamps and lots of Ranger product. It was messy and plenty of fun and exhausting all in one go! Here are a couple of my favourites from the 12 cards. Using mini-misters with the re-inkers and perfect pearls and the gorgeous flourish mask. Playing with alcohol inks and embossing for this one. Lots of layers in this one! Blending, stamping, distressing not to mention getting those flowers right! And last of all, make sure you head over to the Scrapbook City blog for a great sketch challenge. There is a great pack of brand new Bo-Bunny papers up for grabs for this challenge. You have about a week to get your entry in! This is my take on the sketch: OK, that is it for now! Catch you soon.