Weekend Away

Thought I would share some photos from our recent weekend away. This was an adults only weekend away! It was so nice to have time to ourselves and not have to worry about kids for a couple of days! (Although I did miss them, a little bit, just don't tell them that!!) We went to O'Reilly's guest house for two nights and had a wonderful relaxing time. We did some bushwalking, we took lots of photos and we just spent time together! So here are some photos from our time away. This was the view from our little balcony. Pretty hard to take isn't it?! The peak to the left of the shot is Mt Lindsay, with Mt Barney roughly in the middle. This is s beautiful little wren called the Superb Fairy Wren, but I fondly referred to him as Mr A Bastard. He was very difficult to photograph because he just wouldn't sit still, constantly hopping and flying around taunting me! The king parrot is a beautiful bird, and one of the parrots you could feed. We didn't get around to doing a feeding but enjoyed watching them from a distance. This little guy was in cleaning up the left over seed from the parrots feeding! He is a Red-Browed Finch. He was a little tricky to photograph also, but not as much trouble as the wren! This little fellow is a Lewin's Honeyeater. A pretty little bird, but he makes a hell of a racquet! The description in our little bird book describes his "machine-gun" like rattling call, and that is exactly what it sounds like! Not good in the early hours of the morning! Here is the pretty Crimson Rosella. This is the other bird that you can hand feed. Although I think they are opportunists too. This one was hanging around the cafe while we had lunch waiting for his left overs! This is the Satin Bower Bird. A bird I remember from my childhood visits to O'Reilly's, for the fact that we never saw one. They used to be very shy birds, but not any more! We also found an abandoned bower full of beautiful (according to the bird) blue objects. And probably the favourite of the weekend was finding how sociable the Regent Bower Bird has become. Again, one of the shy never seen birds from my childhood. One afternoon we found a tree just outside the restaurant with about ten of these birds and some of their mates. They really are a stunning bird, their colours so rich it looks like velvet. So apart from this we also saw (without cameras handy) a pair of Eastern Whipbirds, a White-throated Treecreeper and a Rufous Fantail. Who ever would have thought this little weekend away would turn into a bird watching safari! So that is our weekend! Since then we have entered school holidays. Which has been good, simply for the fact that I have not had to make lunches or rush around doing anything! I have even got a page done for the Out of the Hat September challenge, which I didn't think I would get done! The criteria was: Minimum of 6 buttons, Border strip and Title embedded in journaling. Well, that's it for now. Catch you soon.

My Minds Eye

Morning everyone! Just quickly dropping in to share my new layout from My Minds Eye, using the beautiful Lost & Found Madison Avenue - Cherish papers! There are full details over on the Scrapbook City blog. Also I have some photos of my new niece Edith. She is so beautiful and makes me miss having a baby around (for a little while anyway!). And these pages were done for Scrapbook City also, using the about to be released Marjolaine collection. Another great collection from Basic Grey! Again, more details over on the Scrapbook City blog. Don't forget the new challenge over at the Scrapbook City blog too! This challenge is all about the bling! There is a great prize too, so go and check it out! That's it from me for now. Catch you soon.

Great things happening...

...over at the "new look" Scrapbook City blog! We have changed the way our blog looks (with a some great work by the lovely Zoe Pearn, love your work Zoe!!) and we have a great challenge on the go too. Not only that, but we have a new Card City blog too! So much happening so little time! Make sure you go and check out the challenges. This week is a Kaiser Craft challenge. Use 70% Kaiser products from one of these lines: Lush, Up Up and Away, Hippy Girl or Secret Bird Society. I have made a sample and I chose to use Hippy Girl papers. So much fun, and I got to try a new flower making technique as well! I will give some more detail about that later on the Scrapbook City blog. So here is the layout: Catch you soon!

August Already??!!

OMG! It is half way through August already! There has been so much going on lately that I don't feel like I have had time to scratch myself let alone blog! I guess I have been negligent of my poor blog, but hopefully things will settle down a little soon so I can get back into some kind of routine. But then again....maybe it won't too. Well, whats been happening... I won a family pass to this years Ekka and we all went along last Wednesday. The best thing for me was riding the steam train from Roma St Station!! Although I do love looking at all of the ducks and geese (a hangover from keeping them as a kid I guess), and I did check out the photography and the cake decorating was amazing! My sisters baby is due anytime soon, so I am counting down to having a new niece or nephew to play with. I am busy taking photos (when I haven't put my neck out of course!) for Essence of Time Photography (and myself sometimes too). I did a wedding just a couple of weeks ago and have been really pleased with what I am editing! The schools annual fete is just about upon us. I will be helping out in no less than three stalls on the day. But if I have timed everything right (fingers crossed that I have) I should be over and done with by 11am! We are just about to hit the birthday season in my family so that will keep us all busy too, and of course it is now a downhill slide to Christmas. I have been scrapping and still having a ball playing with Tim's products. This has me busy at the shop too. I have even won a couple of prizes for challenges over the last couple of months too which is very cool. So lets have a look at what I have been working on. Just a few things to upload! I guess I have been busy! I don't have too much in the way of photos to add because I need to go and have a look and size them for here first! Well, I think this post has been long enough. Thanks for dropping by!

School Holidays

Well, schools over for another term, and we are all glad of a little relaxation. Well, how about just not having to go anywhere in a hurry in the mornings! The term finished with a bang with Niamh finishing off her ancient civilisations studies with a much anticipated "medieval feast". I was not able to be there for the feast, but I helped by creating some "oil painting" artwork of the teachers for the castle and also helped with the decorating. It was looking fantastic too, and from all reports was a wonderful event. I adapted Niamh's Greek Goddess dress to be a medieval dame with some sleeves and change of hairstyle, and it didn't look too bad even if I say so myself! The kids all did well on their report cards and there was especially high praise for both the girls on their instrument work. Now we can relax and take a breather before hitting the downhill run to the fete next term, along with birthdays and new babies! I can't remember if I mentioned before but I am going to be a aunty to two new babies this year! I am so excited! The first is my sister due in August and then my brother and his wife due in November. The kids are really excited too. We all love babies to play with! I am gearing up for some great classes at the shop too and my photography is doing well too. Busy on all fronts there. We are now on the look out for a new car (a second car to boot! the first time in over 10 year we will be a two car family). I am a little excited about this as the new car will primarily be my run about for photo shoots. I am leaning towards something cool like a Toyota Yarris or Mazda 2 or something similar. I have been scrapping too. I am still having so much fun playing with my new found passion of inks and stamping. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of some Dark Room Door stamps into the shop too, can't wait to play with those! So here are a couple of pages, trying to scrap some older photos and use up some of the many patterned papers and embellishments that I seem to own! I have just recently seen a great video tutorial on making some flowers that I can't wait to try so keep a look out for that. But for now, so long and thanks for stopping by. Katie

Phew....

That is about all I can say to sum up how I am feeling at the moment! Finally I can have a breather after a week of busy, busy, busy! Last week saw me helping Scrapbook City prepare for the Scrapbook Convention held over the long weekend just passed. It was pretty intense. Getting samples done, sorting out demo stuff and then helping set up the stand. It is pretty interesting to see just how empty and bare the convention centre looks with stands half created and filled and one big wall open to the air outside. But come opening day it all looked fantastic. It was such a busy first day. I had the pleasure of demonstrating all things to do with Distress Inks and Alcohol Inks, and I don't think I was able to lift my head up or move from my table for the first few hours of being there. I was constantly talking and showing, it was my tummy grumbling that informed me I needed to stop for a break. But it was all great fun. I just love sharing my enjoyment and knowledge with others so they too can share in the fun of these products. I must have been doing all right too because most of my products sold out or close to it! I know that Leisa and Kerri are pretty pleased with how it all went! So now that is all over I can take a moment to stop and remember who my family is and get back into normal routines. But not for too long! I am now working every Tuesday at the shop with the idea of doing more demos and also basic classes on all these techniques. And on top of that I now work for a photography studio! So that will keep me busy too. I guess that means I am not really a stay at home mum any more. Sad in a way, it happened a lot quicker than I was expecting, but I am working in areas that I love so I have no complaints. I have some work to share too. Some samples I have done for Scrapbook City to demonstrate the Tim Holtz products and a page for the June Out of the Hat challenge. These first three are layouts using the great new Basics range from Basic Grey. They are perfect to use with Distress Inks and the border stickers and rub-on's are great, and whats even better are the prices! So I did one girly kind of page so you can see that all things Distress don't have to be grungy! And I played with the Tim Holtz masks, alterations dies and stamps, and now that we have the distress embossing folders in I will be playing with those too! Happy Happy Joy Joy!! LOL! This next page is the Out of the Hat June challenge. The criteria for this month are:

1. More than three photos 2. Mixed alpha title 3. Doodling and staples

I just love the way my page turned out, and yes I managed to incorporate inks and stamps into this too. Just a little obsessed, I know! Over the long weekend while I was slaving away...I mean doing demos, and Andrew was busy, Mum took the kids on a long train trip to visit my brother. Now I would like to point out that obsession runs in the family. With me it is inks and stamps (all pretty harmless I think), but for my brother it is Land Rovers! He has about four (I think). Anyway, he got out the old series one and let the kids all have a drive!! Hilarious, they all had so much fun and couldn't stop talking about it! So here is Erin having a drive. I added a filter to give the "old world" effect that goes with the vintage of the car! I will definitely be scrapping these photos soon. And last of all, a card. I have been doing cards a little more lately. Especially since discovering the Hero Arts stamps, Copic Markers and Jennifer McGuire's blog! It is all so much fun, and all I can say is lucky I work for a scrapbook shop, I think most of what I earn ends up back in their pockets! This card was coloured using copic markers, and I resisted them as long as I could, but in the end it was futile. And now both the girls want pens too! Ok, that is probably enough for now. Lets hope I have a little more time on my hands over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by. Katie

Stuff.....

Well, I have finally managed to find a few spare seconds to sit down and share some "stuff"! Don't you just love that word "stuff" it just encompasses so much! Well, as you can probably guess my "stuff" is all about the scrapping and the photos! We have just recovered from Scrapbook City's retreat (held over the Anzac Day weekend) which was lots of fun as usual. This year I was able to spend my time doing demos of various Distress Ink and Alcohol Ink techniques, and it is so much fun! I ended up doing a canvas of tags with lots of different techniques and I will show a couple of "sneak peeks" today but it looks like this will be turned into a class of its own which is exciting. The canvas is based on one done by Jennifer McGuire who along with Tim Holtz rule the airways as far as Distress Ink techniques go! In fact Tim did his own version of this canvas by Jennifer McGuire and we are on our way to turning this into a class also. I will be doing more of these techniques at the Scrapbook Convention over the June long weekend in Brisbane. So if you are there come and say hello and check it out! I have been enjoying playing with these inks so much that I am finding all sorts of interesting ways to use them in my scrapping. It is amazing just how versatile these inks are, not to mention addictive! I am now waiting on some new Hero Arts and Tim Holtz stamps to arrive so that I can do more! Over at Out of the Hat challenge I have come to my final month as a Mad Hatter. I cannot believe how quickly that 6 months went! But what fun it was, thanks to Amanda for giving me the chance to share my takes on each months criteria and to the other girls whose work was always fantastic! This month the criteria are:

1. Use sanding 2. Use triangles 3. Use a quote

Deceptively simple criteria!! But I had fun and even found a way to use my new found addiction for stamping and distress inks! I sanded the triangles which make up the banner after embossing them in the Cuttlebug, and the quote comes from Top Gun (if you didn't remember!). The car I cut using the Just Chillin' design card and my Slice (yes I still use this all the time!) and I embossed the car and inked the raised parts, stamped a flourish to use as the exhaust, used alcohol ink on clear buttons to colour them to match the car and then stamped the quote and journal spots using the same distress ink! Phew....there is a lot of inking going on there! See I told you I am rather obsessed! Talking about the Slice (like I needed an excuse!), I used the Calendar card to cut these cool Easter eggs and the word Easter to finish off my page about an Easter egg hunt. The eggs look really cool with the Kindy Glitz to jazz them up. And yes, that is a new border punch! It is the swirl one from EK Success, cool isn't it! I have been busy for the shop too, with all the new product that has come in over the past few weeks. I got the chance to play with some new Fancy Pants, the Rusted Sun line is really really nice! The colours are so rich and vibrant I can't wait to use my left overs on some more pages! Oh and the trim is simply beautiful, and yes, there is another new border punch on this page! The zipper one from EK Success, it is funky isn't it??!! So to wrap it up for today (and what a big post it seems to be today!), I have another page where I have been inking a lot, using my Slice, oh and border punches too! In other words the usual!! I just love how my lorikeet turned out. He is a "parrot" shape from the Under the Sea card for the Slice and I used the appropriate Distress Ink colours to "colour" him in to look like a lorikeet, then finished with a red pearl for the eye. Turned out alright too I thought. The journal block too was stamped and "aged" with distress inks and the tickets also stamped onto white cardstock and coloured to look like the old fashioned kind of tickets we all remember. And that is one of my favourite new border punches from EK, the bracket. Oh, I used some LillyBee papers which are really nice too. The first time I have got my hands on any of these! So, I think I have run out of things to say for now. So, until next time, scrap on!