What a Crazy Few Weeks!

I can't believe it has been so long since I have managed to get on here and update. And how much has happened in that time??? Well we had the Craft show at the end of October, quickly followed by moving the store to a bigger location, the announcement of our lovely Nikala as one of the For Keeps new Elite Team and to wrap it up the grand opening of the store and the Award's Night...phew...no wonder I am exhausted!!!

It has all been good fun though if exhausting at times. And the pace won't slow down now as we hit the downhill run to end of the school year and of course Christmas!

We also have my birthday, Andrew's birthday, Andrews' mum's birthday, my girlfriends little boy's birthday and her husband's and the arrival of her new little one........

Oh talking of new little ones my brother is going to be a dad!!! He and his wife Jenny are expecting! They are due in early May, and we are all so excited.

The girls had their first official Karate grading yesterday and both our now the proud owners of yellow belts with visions of becoming black belts one day!

I have been busy with some photography comps too. I have an entry in the Lord Mayors photographic challenge. This will be announced at the end of the month and the gallery open with the ones they chose for display in December. So I will keep you posted there. And the Canon Photo5 competition. This is cool, those who registered (limited to 2500) were all sent a little box with 5 items (including the box) to be photographed in an interesting and creative way. This comp closes for entries this week, and then next week the judges will put up the final 10 in each category for public voting. I really would love to have one in the final 10 of one of the categories...guess we will see soon enough there!

Also waiting for the Scrapbooking Memories Masters to be announced. The mag for this comes out late December, but they haven't notified the winners yet...so fingers crossed... I will be happy with an honorable mention for something though!!

All in all I have alot of waiting to do! Anyway, so here are the For Keeps layouts that they didn't keep (all but one, and as per usual not the one I thought they might have kept??!!)





Well thats all for now. I will be sure to keep you updated on all the comps I am waiting for!!

The pressure is on....

To update my blog that is! There is a little friendly encouragement happening with the girls at Scrapbook City to keep our blogs up-to-date! So here it is! An update!! Yay! Well, life is certainly getting busier as we approach the end of the year. Just last week we had Erin in at hospital for a steroid injection into her knee. Luckily she has responded really well. The swelling has gone down amazingly and her knee looks almost the same as the good one. But it is hard to send your little girl off into theatre. They were really good and allowed me in until she went to sleep. She amazed us all with how brave she was through the whole process. Hopefully this will keep the arthritis in check for a while now. Niamh is ready to grade to yellow belt with her Karate and you can't wipe the grin from her face! She is doing well and seems to be committed. She has even said she would like to have her black belt by 10 (she is eight and a half now!). She was absolutely horrified when I suggested it might be better if she was 12 or 13 before she got that far!!! Life has been busy with things for the shop too. Lots of Christmas preparations going on. Things to make, classes to prepare and all that! Good clean fun! Well, there seems to be a problem with uploading images at the moment so I will have to come back and finish that off later. Oh, one last piece of exciting news... My little Liam is toilet training! (OK not that exciting, but for those who know what changing nappies all the time is like, you will understand!!).

Layouts for Paper Crafts Festival

Well, I have finally photographed my layouts from the paper crafts festival! So here they are!




I am so glad we are nearing the end of the school holidays. I am ready for life to go back to routine and give me a few hours a day of quiet! But, I have to say they have flown by pretty quickly. I don't like our chances for slowing things down before Christmas!

Talking of Christmas, my side of the family have chosen not to spend money on gifts (except for the kids) and spend some time together instead and we are now booked in for a long weekend together at Bribie Island in December! I am looking forward to this! It is so nice to not have to think about gifts for more people.

Anyhoo, time to go now. I need my breakfast, how else will I survive my very loud children! Catch you soon.

Paper Crafts Festival

Well, worked yesterday at the paper crafts festival, came home pretty exhausted. It was busier than we were expecting which was good. The day just flew past. I power scrapped the night before with new paper lines to have examples, so this didn't help with the exhaustion! I didn't even have time to photograph them before I took them in, so you will have to wait to see them. At the moment I am busy with Christmas projects for the shop. That is certainly keeping me busy! But there are some gorgeous new Christmas lines out already! Anyway, I have a mini book to finish off for my niece who has just turned one, so that will keep me busy for today! Her party is tomorrow, so time is of the essence! Chow for now!

New Blog links

Hidiho, just dropping in to welcome my newest blog links! Over at Scrapbook City some of the girls decided we should get out and blog more and support each others blogs. I thought it a great idea so have joined in the fun. I now have links for Jen U, Terri, Tish, Wendy, Trudi (my adoptive daughter ;) ) and Tam. Make sure if you visit you go over and say Hi to them too!

Busy Week

Well, I am half way through a busy week. The best thing about this week is the release of issue 59 of FK. I have two layouts in there this month! Very exciting, these are the layouts:




Great news when I came home yesterday, FK has decided to pick up another layout of mine for their back to school gallery!

Well, as for other news, I will be working at the Paper Craft Festival on Friday. This should be a bit of fun, and a good way to get out of the house for a little break. I am lucky the in-laws are able to come and take care of the little ferrals while I am there!

As for today, the lovely Aunty Jenny is coming to take the girls out for the day, so I am going shopping with my good friend Deb. We are heading over to Photocontinental. I have promised not to spend too much on photographic equipment!! Although I am starting to price flashes and light meters and reflectors......OK I promise to behave!

Which reminds me, I need to load in some photos from the Fete Part II last Friday night. Great fun had by all. Catch you soon.

Latest Work

I thought I had better get some of my recent pages up, since I haven't put any up for ages....

This one was for Scrapbook City and uses some of the new Cosmo Cricket papers.

This used new Scenic Route papers and was also for the shop.

This was inspired by the latest Scrapbook Creations - Colour Challenge of magenta & mango.

For the shop, new Cloud 9 papers. I really love this one.

This was for a newsletter feature on using buttons creatively. Quite like how this one turned out.