a catch up and a new year....

Welcome to a brand new year and the first of what I hope to be many posts ;)

It's been months since I last posted anything on my poor neglected blog, but I guess real life well and truly got in the way of all things scrapping towards the end of last year.

That said... here is a little picture catch up of some of the things that occupied my time...

 Miss Isabelle turned 6 in November.  We decided to have a friends party and also a family party, which resulted in the two cakes and birthday which drew out to several days.  Suffice to say, Belle was pretty happy :) Her first cake was a Little Miss cake...

 and cake number two for the family celebration was a rainbow layered cake with meringue frosting... this one was a huge success and was actually quite easy to make.

 Master Josh turned 5 in December.

 and here is his cake.  This year I took the easy option for Joshua's cake, given that this is the third tractor cake in a row he has requested.  We have made a little red tractor cake, a green John Deer cake and this one here below.  I am hoping by the end of the year, he may have broadened his horizon's a little.... I don't like my chances, so we'll just have to wait and see.

 In a midst all of the madness of birthday's was Christmas.  Here is a happy snap of come of the pressie opening with family.  I was very proud that in amongst all of the chaos, there were three very grateful children who were thrilled with the gifts they received.

My first year of my Graduate Diploma in Autism has drawn to a close....

I am proud of myself beyond words, that I've not only completed my first year, but have done this while teaching 3 days a week and most importantly managing a family with 3 small cherubs and of course 1 big one :) I didn't really love University first time around, but at that stage it seemed like a natural progression...you finish high school and go onto Uni. This time around, I'm studying because I want to and I've loved every minute of it. I have learnt so much about Noah and the reasons why he does some things.  I have come to understand how difficult it must be for him to manage and cope in this crazy world of ours and am so grateful to be better able to help him learn and grow.

In the past week, we have returned from a family holiday to the beach.... here are some pics of the cherubs at play :)

Stef and I decided that with our children the ages they are... family holidays are more about them having fun and experiencing new and exciting things - than us have a rest and a relax :)  The holiday was lovely in that it was a change of scenery, but it also came with it's challenges for Noah with the change in routine and unfamiliar surroundings.  That said, we all had some really fun times and Belle and Josh absolutely loved the time away too.

So there you have it.... a little snap shot into my busy world of late.  There has been very little time for scrapping.... I think the last layout I scrapped was in November!  In all honesty, I do miss it.  I miss the time to myself and that happiness I feel when I get totally lost in creating.  As a result, I am making a resolve this year to make sure I find some time for me to do some of the things I love.

Over the past two years, I have decided upon my one little word for the year.

Last year my word was learn....hehe.. I think that was a pretty good one :)

This year, my one little word is..

Balance.

I am going to concentrate on finding a better balance in all things this year.  My life is really busy and is definitely a juggle and there were patches where I had to retreat within myself just to find the strength to keep everything going at once.  There were patches where I hardly managed the time to chat with friends or to catch up, let alone do things for myself.

I still have as many commitments this year, but I want to make sure I keep things in better perspective.

I am setting the goal to scrap at least I layout a month for myself... it doesn't seem like much, but for me it will be a terrific start.

I hope your start to the New Year has been a fantastic one and that the year ahead holds the most amazing experiences and moments for you all.

Take care.

xxx



WOOOHOOO!!!

If you're here for the Get Picky Blog Hop...

Please scroll down to the next post :)

 

I am a tad excited...hehehe...

A little while ago, I shared some sneak peaks that I'd been working on for the magazine,

Australian Scrapbook Ideas...

Well... one of my projects made the front cover of the Christmas Craft Ideas
magazine special...YAY!!!

It's my very first ever- cover.  I'm a tad excited about that really :)

Here it is...

This is the project up close...

 I used a shadow box to create a Christmas pressie for my Mum. I loved the idea of creating something with non-traditional colours and these papers from Authentique were just perfect.  It's very soft and I think .. pretty... I love how it all came together.

I also made lots of little paper flowers and added little embellishments here and there.  My favourite sort of creating :)

This is the actual issue the Craft mag comes with...

and inside this one, I also have an article with some Christmas gift ideas for men.  It's always a hard thing to try and make a masculine inspired gift.... Stef did laugh (as he is a farmer) at how practical this gift would be for him, but if you have a husband or Dad that works in an office or has a desk area, then these gifts would be great.  I made a calendar using a small canvas and easel and also some photo cubes.

 And this is my first time to appear in the Australian Papercraft Essential Magazine.  I've created  a set of cards using some Paper Tole like flowers from a company called La Pashe.

 Here's what they look like...

and some close ups...

I used Little Yellow Bicycle's Elizabeth Park papers to make the cards and they matched beautifully with the flowers, which were super easy to make.  The come already in pieces on the sheet and you just have to cut them out, shape them and stick them back together.
They are really easy to make!

I know this has been a whole "magazine" post thing, but I'm really excited :)  These days I don't get to scrap nearly as much as I would like to and am largely just scrapping my magazine commissions, so it's nice to be able to share these finally and also to see them in print.

Hope your coming weekend will be filled with happy scrappy moments
or just an all round wonderful time.
Take care and thanks for stopping by.
xxx

Happy Birthday Get Picky!!!!!

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome!

I am so excited to be able to share our very first birthday celebration with everyone.  When Tanya and I talked about our vision for a multi-photo challenge site, we only hoped that people might think  the idea was worthwhile and occasionally be happy to come and play along with some of our challenges.  Now with a design team of 12 truly awesome and ridiculously talented  ladies, a fantastic array of sponsors who have supported us and some 652 followers later....

we are still going  and having a blast bringing our challenges each month and sharing some

 truly beautiful work each month.

So, thank you all for your amazing support!  I hope you enjoy the blog hop and the awesome talent ahead.

xxx

 Welcome to the Get Picky 1^st Birthday Blog Hop! 

 

We are celebrating our first year with a very exciting reveal as we unveil our 13^th Sketch with you today and share the beautiful creations of both present and past designers from our first year!  Some of the team members will be offering prizes so you will want to visit all of the blogs to increase your chances of winning a prize.  We are also offering a major prize along with the chance at a Guest Designer spot for the month of November if you visit and leave a comment at all of the blogs in our blog hop and participate in Sketch Challenge #13.  The Blog Hop starts today and will remain open until midnight (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on October 28^th so this will give you all plenty of time to visit everyone’s blogs and create a layout for the sketch challenge.

Here is Sketch #13

And here is my layout

 

 

As we mentioned, there are lots of great birthday pressies up for grabs along our hop today.  Some of our designers will be offering a RAK of their own and I have a very special little parcel of goodies to giveaway myself.  All you have to do to be in the running for my RAK is to become a follower if you're not already and leave a comment at the end of the post!

Of course there is also the chance to become our Guest Designer for November....but what's a celebration without that very special gift.

We are so very excited to also announce that Imaginisce have been kind enough to sponsor us with an awesome prize for our very special birthday celebration.

(Included in the prize..... the two latest collections with embellishments and stamps from both Geek is Chic and Bon Voyage plus an i-bond cordless glue gun with glitter glue sticks, a d-stress tool and a box of fabric flowers. )

Get Picky is the first stop of our birthday journey where you will find the complete list of all blogs in case there is a glitch along the way.  If you would like to play, just follow along the blog path in order so you don’t miss anyone.

Remember, if you want to be considered for the Guest Designer spot in November, once you have visited all the blogs and uploaded your entry for Sketch Challenge #13, please make sure that you go back to the Get Picky Blog and leave a comment on the challenge post.

The blog hop begins here: Get Picky Blog

Your next stop is here: Tanya Tahir

Thank you so much for joining us for this very special birthday celebration and for your continued support!

published work....

It's always ridiculously exciting...well for me anyway.... to see my pages in print, and ever more so, when you're too busy to keep track of the issue numbers and get a massive surprise to see your own layout in the magazine...lol

Here it is in this month's issue of Scrapbooking Memories...

and they even made a sketch of my layout...hehe..I was excited about that part too!

Here is the layout and some close ups....

If you're looking for something scrappy wise to do this weekend...be sure to pop back on Saturday for a special little surprise....

I can't wait.

xxx

sneaky peaks....

Just a quick update and some sneaky peaks to share....

I've actually created three layouts in the last week, which is no mean feat...lol.. some of my latest creations for a couple of articles coming up soon in Australian Scrapbook Ideas...

These first two using some of the gorgeous Authentique papers.....love the texture of these papers and of course those gorgeous flowers were just begging to be cut out :)

These next two were created using Bella Boyz Papers.....I'm not usually one for brights, but these papers were really easy to work with.  The layout below of Noah is one of my favourites.

Be sure to keep your eyes out for the next issue!

Miss Dorothy.....

This year we had our first Bookweek parade for Belle at school :)

Due to the craziness of my life at the moment, leaving things to the last minute is becoming my mode of operation.  (As my friend Tanya says " you do some of my best work that way"...lol)

Well at 11:00pm last night I stuck the final red rhinestones to the ruby slippers and was all done!  I had suggested earlier to Belle that maybe she might like to go as Little Miss Sunshine ( I was thinking...yellow cardboard circle..some texta..) but she didn't even remotely like that suggestion, so then came the list of other possibilities...some of which included a Beanie kid, or a Zhu Zhu pet?????? What the....hehe!

Anyway....in the end we decided upon Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.....

Don't ask me what was going on with her smile during this photo....(we do refer to her as our little space cadet...lol).  I am pretty chuffed with how this all came together as I am seriously not a fantastic seamstress by any stretch.  And below are the ruby slippers.

She had some old shoes that she has pretty much grown out of, so I covered them with red fabric and stuck on lots on red rhinestones.  The pic below is of her doing her little walk in the parade.

As it so happen...she actually won......the best costume for the Infant area (Grades Prep/ 1 & 2) and she got a new book as a prize.....one about a Zhu Zhu pet co-incidentally..lol..

All in all a very happy little girl who had an awesome day. 

 One tired mumma, but hey, it was well worth it :)

Hope your day has been a happy one too.

xxx



Beautiful friend....

It's hard to believe that all those years ago when I signed up to be on the Kaisercraft design team, I would meet and make friends with some of the most beautiful women I know.  I am fortunate enough to still be in contact with many of them, but none as regularly as my stunning friend Tanya.

Earlier this year, we got to meet in person for the first time when she was in Melbourne  and we spent a gorgeous couple of hours together in a street side cafe.  Here is a little pic from our play date...

I love this pic of us even in spite of the fact that Tan is just as gorgeous on the outside as she is on the inside.  You know how sometimes you are just so fortunate to be given the gift of a meeting and knowing awesome people that you just click with.  Well , she is definitely one of those friends for me.

We generally speak every other week and email in between and when we're not chatting about Get Picky stuff, there is always other stuff to occupy a conversation.

Well, a little while ago was Tan's birthday, so I thought I'd make her a little something, which I can now share.  Here it is....

I just made a little altered canvas with one of my favourite friendship quotes.

  and used some of my beautiful flowers from Tessa over at Precocious Paper .

I am really blessed in my life to know and love some of the most spectacular women and equally fortunate to be able to call them my friends.  Hope your lives are filled with such beauty too!