Time to Update

Well, another couple of weeks has disappeared so I thought I should get on and update the world as to my goings on! Well, first and foremost I finally have my new printer!! I went with the Canon Pixma Pro9500 and is now referred to as my other baby! (The first baby being the 30D camera, of course!!)

I found this image on the net to show you what it looks like.....

Now just imagine the real life size! Approximately 28" across and perhaps 14" deep, and that doesn't count when the trays are out for printing! So she is a beauty all right! As you can probably guess this is a wide format printer and does up to A3 prints! (Yay me!) As yet I have only printed a couple of small bits and pieces, but what it has printed has been great. With 10 different coloured inks I would have hoped so!!

So, that is one part of the past few weeks. We are still on school holidays, but they are drawing to a close and we start to get ourselves organised for a new school year. Luckily for me the girls are greatly looking forward to being back at school (I wonder if they know how much I am too!). There are still books to cover and the like, but the motivation factor at the moment is pretty low.

Things have been pretty busy with Scrapbook City. I have been updating the blog regularly to keep interesting bits and pieces on there, even did a step-by-step on using the stamp press. Great tool that one, go and check it out if you haven't already.

I just sent some layouts to some pub calls last week and got the nice little surprise of an acceptance from SM on Monday. Funnily enough it was for one that was rejected by For Keeps in the awards for excellence! It is still here on the blog somewhere, it is called "Star in the Making" and is for the upcoming Sports gallery (of course so long as they are happy with it in the flesh...).

I completed the Layout of the Week for Scrapbook City this week. A new section we have where we provide a materials list and instruction for a layout project each week. Since I used some valentine papers I thought it only fitting to scrap a photo of Andrew and my wedding day, and as per usual Andrew cringed looking at another photo of himself! I haven't informed him it is on the net for everyone to see! Can you believe we celebrate 13 years married in early Feb! Time flies......


I was playing around with some digi scrapping the other day. If only I had more time to play...I really enjoyed what I could do and I am learning so much more about Photoshop along the way.
Here is the layout I created, not too bad even if I do say so myself!


Keep a look out in the soon to be released For Keeps (well I think it is this issue!). In the Back to School gallery I should have a page with Erin and her first day of school. Also waiting for my first publications to happen in SM soon too. One for Easter I think, so I guess a month or two there.

Well, thats all from me for now. I will try and update a bit more frequently than I have been doing. But with all the time I spend on here for SBC I kind of loose enthusiasm for my own ventures! Thanks for stopping by!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well, can you believe it is 2008 already?! The end of the year certainly disappeared in a big hurry.

I suppose I need to update on all the waitings I had, and I guess by the fact there was no news along the way the results are pretty obvious......

No luck in the Canon 5 competition, but I was very happy with my photos for it, so a great result after all.

No honorable mentions for the Scrapbooking Memories Masters either, again a little disappointing, but there is only room for so many to be published and again I was happy with my creations. I have put them on here for you to have a look and see what you think??!!







On a good note, I have another photograph hanging in the Museum of Brisbane again. I was lucky enough to have my entry for the Lord Mayor's photographic challenge selected for display again this year so that is great. Make sure you go and have a look if you are in town!

Since the last post I have had my birthday too. I was lucky to get a set of reflectors and a lens hood to help with my photography and I am almost all the way there to purchasing my new photo printer (with help from friends and family!). This time I am going to the "pro" end of the range. I am looking at a Canon pro9500 which is a wide format printer with 10 ink cartridges!! At a nice price tag to go with it! But I can't wait!!!

Then we come to Andrew's birthday! He was lucky enough to get the money for buying the work bench he has been after, so he is happy about that. Now we just have to go and get it!

Christmas came rushing in after that with lots of great presents all round. The bes probably being the Wii console that came for the family from Santa! It should post more health warnings though. I have been suffering all sorts of sports injuries since the thing came into the house! But I am getting good at bowling, tennis, golf and boxing!!!

Things are hotting up for a great year at Scrapbook City too, with the launch of a reverse auction for a fantastic prize of a Cricut! How cool!

I think that is all the news for now. I will try and be a good blogger and update a bit more regularly!!!

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Anxiously waiting...

Well, I know that I didn't make it as a Master for Scrapbooking Memories this year...never mind...I was really pleased to be shortlisted in my first attempt and hopefully I will get an Honorable Mention (or maybe two or three!!!). Now the wait for the Masters mag begins, that is about a month away now. Lucky there is so much happening that I won't be dwelling on it too much!

Now I am just waiting to see if one (or maybe more??!!) of my photos in the Canon Photo5 competition has made it to the top 10. That news comes out tomorrow when the public voting can commence! I would so love to have made top 10 for one of my photos! I guess the waiting will soon be over!

I purchased a fantastic new scanner yesterday and I am so thrilled with it! This model does film negatives and the resolution is fantastic. I plan on digitising all our negatives and slides so I have handy access to these for printing and scrapping! Talking of scrapping, I have some great travel photos from the lovely Lauren to scrap for her. She has passed out photos from her recent travels to anyone who said yes to help her get her album done. What a great idea. The challenge for me will be doing a 8.5 x 11 sized layout!! Keep a look out and I will put them up once they have been finished!

Niamh had some exciting news this week, she has been offered a place to learn the cello next year at school. She is so excited about this as she really wanted to do violin last year but didn't make it in. Andrew's comment however was "Why did she have to go and pick one of the most expensive instruments to buy??" !!! Oh well, a year to save for one since the school supplies one for the first year.

Here are a couple of things that I have done recently:




Well that's it for now, thanks for stopping by!

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!