Easter Update

Well, Easter certainly crept up quietly but quickly this year! But it is definitely nice to be on go slow for the school break!

Since the last update we have added two more mice to our brood (don't ask, I am still not quite sure how it happened!). They have all settled in well, and are already well trained like the original two. All you have to do is shake the seed container and they come running looking for you to give them seeds!

Our feathered friend is well settled also. Pearl is such a lovely sweet bird who loves to be on someone's shoulder and be included in the family activities.

Here are the two new meeces... They are Casper (the white, well actually she is creamy coloured one) and Monkey is the other, she is tail-less which was kind of strange at first, but she is not bothered!

So our Easter long weekend has flown by in a flurry of chocolate and egg hunts. Here are a few pictures of the two family activities we had on over the weekend.

I think the kids had a lot of fun with their cousins, which is always nice. And we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of another one too! With only days (hopefully) to go, my brother and his lovely wife are expecting number 3 anytime now! Yipee, another baby to play with!

Well, that's us for now. Hopefully I might get some crafting happening while we are on go slow mode!

Til next time...

Katie

Another Pet...

Yes, another pet has entered our household! Erin had her birthday last week and all that she wanted was her very own pet cockatiel, well now she has one! She chose a hand-reared cinnamon pied pearl cockatiel and she is rather sweet. Her name is Pearl, my idea based on her colouring! I had been joking with her that she would have to call her pet bird to be Capn' Jack after Jack Sparrow, but she wouldn't have a bar of that. Well I had to have a giggle when I told her that even though the name Pearl was after her colouring, there also was the ship the Black Pearl in the Pirates movies! So I got my reference after all!!! Funny! So here is the lovely Pearl and her smitten owner!

We are currently getting her used to all of us and being handled, and we seem to be having little achievements every day. So I am sure it won't be too long before Erin will be sitting doing her homework with Pearl on her shoulder, or perhaps trying to eat her pencil!

I have also completed another three challenges from the Studio Calico Bright Ideas class. This class is almost over and I am only up to challenge #7 (out of 22 so far!), but I am not worried. It has all been about getting ideas, trying new things and just generally being inspired to scrap, and that is happening!

So this first one is about the polka dot, making your own no less! So I went for subtle effect and did tone on tone dots on my background, and I also stamped some soft pink spots on my patterned paper.

 

This next one was all about neutrals with a pop of colour. Pretty self evident I dare say! 

 And last but not least, this was an inspired by kind of page. Here is the original image -

I chose initially the colour scheme, and then also played on the squares and circles and even the gold edges. I am quite pleased with how it finished up. Oh and let me just say, I am loving my silhouette!!!

So, that is all for now. Hopefully some more challenges to come, especially as this week has not been quite as hectic as the last couple!

New Additions!

So, Daughter #1 (as in eldest not best!!) had her birthday last weekend. Fourteen can you believe?! I am not sure that I can, but I guess it is what it is! So what did we get a fourteen year old for her birthday I hear you ask, well some clothes, a charm for her bracelet and some mice. Yep, we gave in and gave her some pet mice. Two cute little creatures that she has named Minnie and Patches. She didn't seem to like the names that I had already given them - Fatso and Wousbag. See I had got to know them before she did, after hiding them from her for four days, and so I thought I had naming rights, but apparently not!

 So this is Minnie (aka Fatso), she is sweet and she does love her food.

And this is Patches, for obvious reasons (aka Wousbag, as she was much more timid!).

And here is the big fourteen year old with her new charges.

Looking more and more grown up every day. But you can't wipe that grin off her face now that she has her own pets!

Also I have managed to do another two of the challenges for the Bright Ideas class over at Studio Calico. I am only behind a bit, they just posted Challenge #9, and I just finished #3!! It is hard to do something every day let me tell you. But no worries, I will be kept with scrapping ideas well after the class finishes, so that is cool!

The first was to sew your title, and I roughly kept to the sketch that came with the challenge too. It was a good excuse to scrap a page celebrating our wedding anniversary that was also last week. 18 years! Wow! But I couldn't imagine having my life with anyone else....

This challenge involved using a map or something map like on your page. Again I kept roughly to the sketch mainly because I loved the big photo and simplicity of the page, which really worked with my photo. I used a printed bit of the Binna Burra walking trail maps along with some map patterned paper, very cool challenge!

So, that about sums up the past week. Next week we celebrate Daughter #2's birthday, we like to pack them in!

Thanks for stopping by!

Katie

Class Challenge

Well, I did something that I haven't done before! I signed up for an on-line scrapping class! I am currently a "student" of the Bright Ideas class over at Studio Calico, and it consists of almost daily ideas, sketches and inspiration, not to mention the wonderful printable files and cutting files that also came with the class.

So, the class started on Friday (1st Feb) and I have finally finished the first challenge (the second is already up and the third out tomorrow!) set by the talented Amy Tan. The idea was to use paints and masks, whether you created your own mask or used something you already had on hand. I used a crafters workshop template that I already had and followed the sketch that Amy included based on her sample layout. Here is the result!

So, that's all for now. But hopefully this class will keep me creating regularly and I will be in updating more too!

Welcome 2013!

I was going to start with Happy New Year, but I guess that has been and gone! So I hope that Christmas was good to you all and that you rang in the new year with friends and loved ones. Our Christmas and New Year was very family oriented, with lots of family functions, which was tiring, but nice.

Since then life has been pretty quiet. Kid's playing with/using Christmas gifts and catching up on sleep. I have even managed to snatch a little time here and there over the past week or so to have to myself in my crafting space. The first order of the day was the need to refresh and renew my space. This urge quite often comes with the ringing in of the new year. A good sort and cull later I was feeling more inspired to sit there and create! I also was pretty excited to get time to sit down and play with my new toy.....

I have a Silhouette Cameo! Yay for me! I had been uhmming and ahhing about this for a while now, and then a few weeks out from my birthday in December (the big four zero don't you know!) I decided I needed to buy myself a birthday present, and so I ordered one!

Well, so far, all I can say is this.... this machine is wonderful! I wish that when I first had the urge for and electronic cutting machine that this one was around. I wouldn't have gone through other costly machines (which I used but not as much as I thought I would have, and never quite lived up to the hype). But I guess if I hadn't experienced the shortcomings of these other machines then I wouldn't have truly appreciated how great the Cameo is now would I??!!

So I have done some of the January challenges, and thought that I had better photograph them and link them before the month disappears in a flurry of action. So here they are, in no particular order...

White with One - a colour challenge - White + Aqua and Red + Summer Photo

So, I have used the Cameo to cut the sunburst background, and the title and the arrow! The cool lollipop is from Purple Pumpkin.

This next one is Kraft it Up, another colour challenge. My colours are all a little subdued compared to this swatch though!

Again, the Cameo was used to cut out the speech bubble with the words. Very cool!

This one is for Scrap the Boys. Their challenge was to scrap a photo showing your son's favourite summer/holiday activity and use the photo to inspire the layout.

No Cameo cuts here, can you believe it?! Just a simple page using lots of bits and pieces lying around! Gotta make room for new CHA stuff!

And last but not least, a page for Stuck?! January #1 sketch.

This one did use the Cameo! The title, arrow and speech bubble are all cut with the cameo. I have been super impressed with how fine and detailed a cut this machine can do. Not to mention that I can create my own custom cuts quite easily! I had the basic speech bubble that I turned into this! Love being able to weld words too.

Well, that is all scrapping wise. But before I go I thought I would throw up a photo from Christmas that I simply call - "The Aftermath". I am sure you can all relate to this one!

Until next time!

Katie

Last Minute November Post!

Well, I thought I had better pull my finger out and get a couple of challenges that I did get done for this month up onto my blog and linked! In truth they have been sitting on my desk done for at least a couple of weeks waiting, and waiting and being ignored!

I have managed to do the White with One and Kraft it Up challenges for November, yay me! First of all here is the White with One - White + Greens + Chevron Pattern:

I had fun playing with my new Spellbinders hexagons in this one, and I even pulled out my Slice and cut the cute little car and title. I didn't realise how much green I had until I started looking!

This next one is the Kraft It Up challenge of Kraft + Minimalist/White Space:

A simple layout about DD1 academic achievement in her first year at high school. I got to use one of the cute little Purple Pumpkin badges that I own too!

Now this page was supposed to be for the October Scrap the Boys challenge of scrapping your boys favourite book/s. I, as usual at the moment, didn't get it up in time. I am not even sure if it was finished in time either! But, never the less, a page I still love!

On a proud parent note, we have DD1 who achieved academic honours for year 8 (at least 5 "A's" across her subjects), DD2 who has been elected Strings Captain for next year and DS who was accepted into the schools enhancement program as well as to do violin! Can't ask for much more than that from your kids can you??!!

On that note, thanks for dropping by!

Katie

Photo Catch-Up

Ok, so as is usual at this time of year, there is a lot going on, so I thought I would do a quick catch up of events via photos! So here goes, hopefully in chronological order!

So, first of all, we went on our annual camping trip with some of our school family friends. The group ended up consisting of around 24 kids all up. So you can imagine the kids had a great time hanging out with friends all weekend. This year saw us down at Pottsville, and the first photo shows where we found a safe and protected place to swim. Pretty isn't it?!

 

This week saw Liam receive an award on assembly - "Star of the Week", looks pretty pleased with himself doesn't he?!

Also this week our big girl received an Academic Honours award at the school's annual awards evening. To be given one of these you must have achieved at least 5 "A's" across your year 8 subjects and Niamh managed 6! Her subjects were - Science, Chinese, Spanish, Art Accelerate, Music Accelerate and Industrial Technology and Design (the old "manual arts" subject), not a bad effort and she was also so close to an A in maths as well. So as you can imagine we are pretty proud of our big girl. Funny to think her first awards night is the 59th annual event, and mine was the 32nd annual event, but it was called speech night back then!

Then we flowed into Halloween. Usually we don't go out of our way to do much, but it is becoming bigger and bigger here each year. The kids all did a "trick or treat" to the camping families while we were away, and I let the kids do the same in our street this year.

Well, I think that wraps things up for now. See you next time!