Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010! I can't believe another year has rolled around, and I am sure this one will disappear just as quickly as the last one. Although I am secretly hoping that it will slow down just a little this time! Christmas was good for us, and lasted about 4 days! After that we were all well and truly over festive food! Liam's comment after having sausages and salad (normal food!) for dinner a couple of days ago - "Mmmm, that was so good". Funny, but summed up how we were all feeling I think! The kids got plenty of cool presents mainly around Lego, DS games and Ben 10! I scored a new Slice card (Under the Sea) and a great new lamp for my desk. So I am pretty happy too! I have even had some time for scrapping, which has been nice. The January challenge is now up over at Out of the Hat, so make sure you check it out. I have done my sample with the criteria, which are: 1. Use circles some where 2. Used striped paper 3. One word title And my result is this page about a Kindy creation made by Liam. I have been playing with flowers again on another couple of pages. I read a technique on the Creating Keepsake blog for these scrunched flowers and I must say they turned out quite well. I think I will use this idea again. Although one little tip, don't use paper that is too thick! After making the flowers I sprayed them with some glimmer mist for extra sparkle! This last layout (using some older photos again), I made layered flowers with paper and felt. I really like the simplicity of these kinds of flowers, and how you can so easily create embellishments to match your page from a few scraps! I also ran the chipboard title through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder, something I will be doing again! Well, I have some photos to edit now, so I will keep going. I will share some of these Christmas photos soon! Catch you soon.

A Few More Pages...

Well, aren't holidays grand! I have had some time (between trips to the pool for lessons and the shops for groceries!) to do a few pages and play with some new things. I finally had a play with my new deep edge Martha Steward punch and I have to say another favourite has been born! Anyway, enough blabbing here is what I have been up to. I also played with the spiral flowers that Anne had on her blog a little while ago. These ones were made with felt and add a real depth to the page. I am also loving these hydrangea flowers I picked up from My2Angels. And the strip in the middle is my new punch, very cool isn't it?! Again playing around, old photos to scrap and older papers to use, making my own flowers with paper and felt, love how these ones look. And can you believe the little girl in the stroller is now almost 9! And speaking of little girls. These two are now almost 11 and 9, a far cry from these little urchins clean out of the bath! I used the MS punch again, as a mask with chalk ink down the bottom of the page and as the original strip at the top. Again making my own flowers. This time from shaped punched circles sewn together. Quite effective I thought. This one has used the newer Vintage Findings line from Making Memories. And given we are so close to Christmas and the cards have been sent, I thought I could share with you my Christmas card for this year and take the opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Safe and Happy New Year. Make sure to spend time with loved ones and enjoy every moment! Till next time...

As Promised....

Ok, here I am back, as promised! With stuff to share and news. Firstly, I was lucky enough to get my hands on an i-top from Imaginisce to play with last week and then demo to a number of eager ladies. Let me tell you this tool is very cool! It is really easy to use and makes me feel the need to buy it (no, I do not have a tool problem..... honestly....), for the potential it has to make coordinating and decorating pages so easy and cost effective. Below is the page I created as a sample for the demo. I created two medium sized brads which I covered in coordinating papers, then one was coated in Kindy Glitz and the other sprayed with Glimmer Mist (pearl I think). You can see the actual brads better in the close ups further down. It was just such a lovely and easy way to finish off my page. Scrapbook City are selling the i-top and accessories (although I do know they sold out of a few things on Friday after the demos! See it is not just me!!) Hmm, maybe this will be something on my Christmas list!! Or I can just go and buy myself a present and put it under the tree! The other great new tool to add to my collection is one of the new deep edge border punches from Martha Stewart (these sold out pretty quickly too). I picked up the one that actually creates a doily lace strip, very cool! I haven't put it into use on a page yet, but rest assured that is coming soon! I did however manage to do another page. This one you may remember the photo from June or July from our 10 year playgroup reunion. I finally printed a copy and scrapped it. I really enjoyed keeping this page simple and elegant and I managed to use up some older Chatterbox papers too. Well, the kid's are all finished at school and kindy (for the last time) for the year and I am trying to exhaust them with intensive swimming lessons this week each morning. I think I am only serving to exhaust myself! Oh well, Christmas will be here soon and then there will be new toys to keep them occupied. I have also had a birthday since last posting (not including the brief update yesterday!). I scored a hot pink i-pod shuffle to help me ignore the kids over the holidays! Very cool, it is already loaded with some groovy music and some classics. I have found though, that my ears are just not right for the hard larger ear phones and I need to get myself a set of softer inner ear phones. Perhaps another item to add to the Christmas list! I also scored a new cuttlebug folder and the Music and Dance Slice card. Can't wait to play with those new toys! It is Andrew's birthday tomorrow so more celebrating for us! Obviously we have worked out that just dealing with Christmas is not enough pressure! Hopefully I will have some time to be creative soon and then have some more to share! Till next time, thanks for stopping by!

Check out the cool new feature...

Check out the Google Translater feature I have just added! How cool is this??!! Anyway, just a quick note to say I have been busy but have some cool stuff to tell you about shortly. Hopefully tomorrow I will find the time to get it in!

Stuff to Share

Well, its been a busy couple of weeks. You can feel the pace increasing as we slide into school holidays and then Christmas! I now have 2 days left to myself (or sanity days as I am referring to them!) until the kids are all on holidays. So you can imagine a lot is being packed into my spare time! Throw in birthday and Christmas gatherings and the odd photo shoot or two and its a wonder I have time to do anything! Well, I have managed to do a few things! One of which was to get myself onto the Out of the Hat Challenge blog design team! I was pretty excited about this as this is one challenge I try to do each month. So I am now officially a Mad Hatter for the next 6 months along with 4 other talented ladies! Make sure you check out the challenges, they are lots of fun.

The challenge requirements for December are:

1. Spots/Dots 2. Use paper/handcutting 3. Use rub-ons

And this was my result:

I have also finished another few pages, having fun using up bits and pieces and photos that are lying around, oh and playing with my cuttlebug! Oh and also playing with some Glimmer mist and new chalk inks. I must say I am loving these new things! I have to laugh at Erin in this photo! She really wanted here photo taken before she removed the face paint for bed, but she was really not in the mood to have her photo taken! Such a contrast to Liam's happy smiley face, but it makes me laugh as it is so Erin! I love the looks on Liam and Erin's face on this ride. They really don't look like they are having fun, but as soon as the ride finished they were both laughing and giggling and wanting to go right back on it again! I learnt last year that I am no longer up to these kinds of rides, it throws my balance right out and it took me a day to recover! We are all so proud of Liam and his swimming. Especially since he started the year needing to be dragged into the pool grounds. Since this certificate, he has been moved up again, so he is hot on his sisters heels and getting more confident every lesson! Plenty happening at Scrapbook City at the moment too. Classes are being planned, a Christmas party in the works and a newsletter to put together. No wonder I am tired!!! So I had really better get on with it I suppose! Til next time.... Katie

More pages and getting ready for Prep

Another week has flown past and it is starting to really feel like summer is upon us. I think it is about 34 degrees in this room right now as I type and today isn't even supposed to be that hot! Oh well, lots of time at the pool I am thinking! I have managed to get a few pages done this week. Including a sketch challenge from the My Minds Eye blog! This was a fun sketch and these MME Breaking Free papers worked really well with the Easter theme. The next two layouts were simply born out of wanting to scrap, having papers to use and trying to use all sorts of odds and ends I have lying around! The Easy Rider page helped me use some of my left over bits of chipboard and old letter stickers. While the Bed Toys page had me using up buttons, clips and older MM paper! Last week saw us purchasing some new uniforms for Liam for prep next year. To say he was excited was an understatement! He was able to wear uniform to Kindy the next day and then insisted on wearing it again the day after to swimming lessons! I think he is really ready for being a school kid now. Me on the other hand, I am not coping so well. I really didn't think I would be too sad about Liam going to school, but as the reality sinks in I am feeling pangs of sadness thinking I won't have my baby at home with me anymore during the week. I guess I will have to find something else to occupy my time! Catch you soon.

More Playing!

Hello All! I have been having great fun playing with my Slice and experimenting with ways to use the things I cut from it. My new favourite is to cut shapes from transparency sheets and then use them on my page. Here is an example. I cut the title and painted the reverse side and used a pen to outline the letters on the front, I also used paint to edge the little girls. I was really impressed with how easily the Slice cut the transparency sheets. The other fun playing came about trying to jazz up some of the welded words I had cut for the title of this page. So what I did was flocked them! I simply coated the word in dimensional magic and then covered them in flocking powder and waited for the glue to dry before tapping off the excess. One thing I did learn is don't coat all the words first and then add the flocking because the glue had already start to set on the first one and not as much powder stuck. But it still looks ok. This next page is for the November challenge over at Out of the Hat. The criteria was:

1. Die Cut paper 2. 3 photos of different sizes 3. A tree

I used one of my Martha Stewart punches to create the die-cut paper and while it is not perfect I think it worked out pretty well. I had fun with the tree, a simple hand drawn and cut trunk with punched circles that I stamped using a tree stamp from Imaginisce, and then I added pearls for a bit of flair! I am really happy with this page, I love the simplicity of it! This page was in memory of my Sister and Brother in laws dog Dana who recently passed away. She was a beautiful dog and so good with the kids. Worse still only a couple of weeks later their other dog Gemma passed away too. (Both of them were old/sick so it wasn't a great surprise just sad it happened so close together). I did use a KI Memories Sheers background for this one though. It had been sitting in my stash for a while so I thought it was about time I used it. So the background is really see through, I just photographed it on a piece of white cardstock. This was a fun page, using some of the new Q2 Kaisercraft papers. I loved how this one turned out too. It seemed to be the perfect paper for the scooter theme. Well, that is it from me for now. We are starting to get into the silly season so I am thinking my free time is going to start disappearing, but I will try and update as often as I can. Oh, one more thing, I just bought myself a cuttlebug!! I had been thinking on it a little while and said to hell with it and just bought it! I think Andrew is glad, he was getting sick of me talking about it too! So I have a new toy to play with!! Yay! Catch you later.