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!

Crazy Times

Well, here we are, well into October now... where have the weeks been going, that is what I want to know!

Things have been pretty busy here, well for me they have! I have been photographing families, events, weddings and Kindy's. And I am still in the thick of it with another Kindy to shoot next week. Throw into that the fact that we have just finished another lot of school holidays and every day living and it is lucky I have time to scratch myself!

I have however, managed to do a little bit of scrapping. Because we all know that it is good for the soul! Call it my "de-stressor", my way to escape if only for a little while. There were quite a few layouts done "almost" in time for challenges for August and September, I do try but.....

Oh, and guess what? I have just become the owner of a new camera! Yay! I have upgraded to the 5Diii, only just arrived the other day so I am still playing, but so far I love it! The photos of the layouts below were taken using the new baby.

This first one is actually for a current challenge, can you believe it??!! It is for the October Scrap the Girls challenge: Flowers, Two different alphas, more than one photo and staples.

This one I think was for the September Scrap the Girls challenge of Action Photos. Love the new butterfly die that I got myself, it is a beauty!

I think this was Scrap the Boys for September, didn't get it up in time, but I loved the page! The challenge was to use their background as a starting point, hence all the mist/ink/stamping in the background. Also having fun with some new bits and pieces from Purple Pumpkin!

I don't think this was for anything in particular, but I enjoyed playing with masks, inks and stamping.

I think this started out as a sketch for Purple Pumpkin, maybe August, but it took on a life of its own. There are still Purple Pumpkin goodies there though! These are some of my favourite photos of Erin. The look on her face as she goes down the log ride is hilarious! A cross between sheer terror and pure fun!

Well, that will be all for now. I hope to get back with some photos from Binna Burra soon. Andrew and I were lucky enough to have a long weekend by ourselves there during the school holidays. We managed to do about 32 km's of bush walking in two days! So as you can imagine there are a few photos from our walks!Till then....

Some more challenges

Managed to get another couple of challenges done, yay me! I feel like I am catching up after having such a lull in scrapping. It is a nice feeling too. Well the challenges that I have done are for Scrap the Boys and Kraft it Up.

For Scrap the Boys the criteria was - "School Photos", lucky I have a few of those lying around!

Had fun playing with my new chevron mask, and some Tim Holtz stamps, and this Studio Calico mist was the perfect colour match!

For Kraft it Up the criteria, besides the obvious Kraft is - Tell the story of something you would like to do/ wish to do in the future and must include journaling.

My wish is to be able to see penguins in their own environment down in Antarctica. I would love to travel there and photograph and be amongst the emperor penguins, wouldn't that be amazing! Hmm might have to win the lotto for that one! Unless someone would like to sponsor me of course!

Here are another couple of photos from down the coast too. Our accommodation was right next door to the "Sling Shot" and "Vomitron" rides and at night when they were going they were all lit up like Christmas! Was funny to hear the screams coming from there too!

One night we travelled down to Burleigh for fish and chips and took the camera too to get a different view on Surfers. I didn't have the best lens for the job with me, but the result is still all right, I think.

Anyway, that's it for me today. Maybe I will try and do some more scrapping this weekend! Or perhaps a photo expedition?!

More Photos and stuff...

Back again! Thought I would share another couple of photos from our coast get away.

Erin and Liam having a "Zen" moment in the water, also providing proof that despite the cold they did actually go into the water!

Love seeing the penguins at seaworld! Hard to photograph them well in the water and through the glass when they move so fast though! I liked this view, he looked like he was swimming right at me!

Penguins again! This time just through the glass and not through glass and water! They are such lovely creatures! Could watch them for ages.

So yesterday was first day back at school, so what is any self respecting Mother to do with her time? scrap of course, and I did! Finished a page for the Scrap the Girls challenge blog. This months criteria was: Black + White + One other colour (just like the penguin above!)

Love this photo of Niamh, taken using my phone when we were out at South Bank earlier this year. This is the common scowl I get these days when I try to take a photo of her. I wonder if she will grow up and then start asking why there aren't many photos of her as an early teenager??!! I just noticed too, that my colour scheme does match the gorgeous king penguin in the photo above! Too funny!

Anyway, done for now. Catch you later!

Scrapping and Photos!

Well, school holidays have come and gone and I can't really say I have done a lot during this time, but hey, who cares, right??!! I did some layouts for June for White with One and Kraft It Up, but never got them loaded in time, but hey, sometimes it is just about doing something. So here I am today instead to load some photos from our little break at the Gold Coast, and a few pages that I have done, oh and proof that I have met the wonderful man himself... Tim!

You can't half tell he's done this before! He was there for at least an hour smiling and signing while we all waited for our turn to stand next to him and smile!

So here are the June layouts that I mentioned, but forgot to load....

Then, when I had five minutes or so to myself I did a couple of pages just for me! My thoughts have been to not buy any new paper and just pick a kit/manufacturer and just use up all that patterned paper that I have lying around. So much of it that I really do not need to buy anything new for ages (I am sure that will not stop me for long though!). So Simple Stories and Echo Park have been used here, with lots of great MFT dies! These however I do not have enough of, yet..... LOL!!!





And last of all, thought I would get in early this month, and have my White with One layout.

White + Polka Dots + Tape

So I have had great fun playing with some of the new seasonal distress inks, squeezed lemonade from the spring collection and pickled raspberries from the new summer range. Aren't the colours just gorgeous?! So I created my dots using the inks and a mask and the zigzag tape (D-lish Scraps) I thought just helped frame the photos perfectly. A simple page that came together quickly, but was a lot of fun to create!

Last of all, a couple of photos from the coast. The first was funny as a group of tourists were captivated by Erin and Liam digging and playing in the sand in the middle of winter! So of course, I took a photo of them taking a photo of my kids!

And this next one is one of the views we had from our 29th floor! Pretty hard to take really, but someone has to do it!

Well, that is all from me for now. Catch you another time!