A couple of LO's

Here's a couple of Lo's I did last night. Sorry the photos are a bit lousy.

The little blue man clip is the one I was blogging about the other day from the post office.

How cute are these little pin cushions?

Rach showed off one of these that she'd made and I just loved it (check her's out, love the fabric and colour combo)!! So I thought I'd have a go and man are they ever easy to make. They only took me about 30 minutes each. Well the first one had a big gap in between the start and completion because while I was searching for the right button to use my container that houses all my buttons (which were neatly sorted by colour) and all my pins, clips, charms etc fell off my lap. :(

I have had these espresso cups sitting in my cupboard for years, well actually the black saucer was under a plant on my bench so this was a perfect little project for me.

I'm going to be published!!!

How exciting is that!!! :) I've only submitted things a couple of times and the rejections are a bit had to take but it's worth it now. It's my Love U Lo with the b&w photo of Jack and I and it will be published in Scrapbook Creations Issue 48. I have no idea when it's out, maybe September. I just think it will be an incredible keepsake for Jack to have been in a big glossy printed magazine. And the girls over at EB have been sooooo lovely with all their congratulations. I love those girls.
I stayed up for HOURS last night watching the Big Blue extended version. It's my brother's favourite movie and I had seen it decades ago but I thought I'd watch it again. I thought it was an awfully sad movie and wasn't really worth staying up until nearly 2 to watch either but each to their own I guess.
Owen came up with a good idea for some shelves above my scrap desk but I need to clean out the room first which is a BIG job. I've got to try to store the cot and change table plus all the junk we have and I only have the space under the bed and in one cupboard. Plus I have to put away about 5 loads of washing first. Grrrrr...
Anyhoo, that's it for now, I'm off to clean after a bit of surfing.
Ciao

My sweet baby boy

Jack is sooooo adorable at the moment. He is coming out with all sorts of different things. The other night Owen and Jack were sitting up on the bed and Jack says, "I'm next to you Daddy". I thought that was pretty impressive that he understands things like that. And he's so polite and thoughtful. If he accidently steps on your foot or bumps into you he comes over and rubs whatever he thinks he's hurt and says, "I'm sorry Mummy". He's just lovely and soooo cute too.

I was chatting to my friend Kim on MSN tonight and was saying that I'd cut Jack's hair this morning so she asked me for a photo. I went and got the camera and asked Jack to come and stand in front of a beige wall and he said he had to go and get Cookie Monster. A few weeks ago I was trying to get some photos of him and had been using his Cookie Monster as a diversion and had used the same wall so he had to go and get Cookie to be in the photos. Isn't that sweet.

Here's the photo of his haircut...and of course Cookie.
Jack and I went shopping today and apparently so did the entire population of Rockhampton. We drove around for ages looking for an undercover park and while we were driving around we passed Mum and she had my sister-in-law Karen and my neice Rasharna in the car with her. We eventually parked outside in the rain, lucky it wasn't too bad. I went and did a couple of things and then me met up with Mum and Co and so we had some lunch with them and had a bit of a look around. Poor Rasharna will have sore legs tomorrow after chasing Jack around the shopping centre for hours. No great bargains today I'm afraid. I did get some cute little boy clips from the post office. I'd been eyeing them off when I was there a few weeks ago and then today after I'd addressed a parcel I realised that I didn't have any cash and there is a $10 minimum for EFTPOS so I grabbed those and some other little clips and things to use for scrapbooking so keep and eye out for them in an upcomming LO.
Jack of course fell asleep before we even got out of the carpark so I put him to bed when we got home and I did a layout. I'm really happy with it. I got the idea for the wings from an article in SM about digital brushes and there was one where they had added some paisley wings to a photo and it looked so cute so I thought I'd give it a go with paisley chippies. I think it works.

I've acually decided to try and stretch myself as far as my scrapbooking goes. I really enjoyed the challenges at the cyber crop at 3 Angels Scrapping the other weekend so I'm going to try to push myself a bit when it comes to creativity. I very very rarely use patterned paper for a background on LO's so that was my challenge for today.

Righteo, I'm off to shuffle some paper in my scrap room. Bye

A girly day out!!

My Mum is on holidays at the moment so today we had planned to meet up and do 'something' so anyway my neice Rasharna has a bit of the flue and her Mum was working so she stayed at Grandma's last night and today so we had a girls day out today and went and did a bit of shopping/browsing.

We had a big browse through the Warehouse (cheapo discount store) to start us off. They get some cool stuff in there from time to time. I bought a couple of bunches of cheapy fabric flowers to pull apart for scrapbooking and a couple of little bits and pieces including this gorgeous little hippo noughts and crosses set. Isn't it adorable?

After that we had a little drive around a couple of streets checking out some of the houses in the area, there's a lot of really great restorations being done lately. Then we headed down to the Sweet 'n Shabby shop, which is gorgeous, Home Beautiful and then the Complete Garden. My Mummy bought me this stunning mat for my front door. I couldn't beleive it when we saw them, they were only $12.something each and they are made from rubber so they'll last for ages. I LOVE it, it my new favourite thing around my house. Then we headed off to All About House, then we realised that it was 2.30 and we hadn't had lunch so we went to Stocklands and grabbed some lunch. After that we trotted off to Loot, had a browse and my Mum bought me these cool sticks, how spoiled am I and they were a bargain too at $6 a bunch. After a bit more of a browse around I grabbed my groceries and we went home.

Our poor little man is a bit sicky at the moment. He's got a bit of the flue, snotty face and a nasty cough. Last night he came in with us at about 2am and was crying on and off all night. He was bright and chirpy this morning but snotty as hell and off his food this morning and he's been a bit upset most of the afternoon. It makes you feel just awful when your little ones are sick and it's so hard to console them. He perked up a bit tonight after his bath, 3 tubs of yoghurt, 8ml of panadol and 6ml of cough medicine. He's asleep now so I hope he has a restful night and feels better in the morning.

On the work front, hmmmmm well. My boss is leaving, boo hoo hoo. He's going down south to be closer to his family and we'll be getting someone new. It's always such a stressful time for all the staff. The second there's a whisper about a franchisee change everyone starts panicing. Me included to a degree. I guess because I only work 2 days a week anyway if I do get made redundant or something it's not that much of an issue but it sucks. I LOVE my job. I really really hope things don't change. I've got couple of work from home opportunities in the near future so, well, I don't know. It'll all work itself out. The other thing is that we're a pretty friendly group (most of the time) at work and socialise together quite a bit and I'm going to miss him and his wife and their kids. So anyway, it sucks. :P And also our 2IC is getting his own store as well so he and his family are leaving as well. So lots of change, I don't like change. (Well sometimes I do but change that I'm not controllng myself I'm not fond of)

Anyhoo, here's the frame thingy I've done for the cyber crop challenge over at 3 Angels Scrapping.

Oh plus it's been bloody cold here today.

More market bargains!!

Well yesterday Jack and I went to the markets with Mum and Grandma and I got a couple more bargains. I got all these ribbons for $6 and all up there's 32 metres of ribbon, how's that for a bargain and the pink exactly matches some little canvas's I painted the other day to make into a mini album. Plus there was a stall that had 5 avocado's for $2, cheap as chips I tells ya.


After the markets we had a bit of a squiz down the mall and Mum bought me a wardrobe hanger that I'm going to use in my scrap room to hold all my pp and cardstock. I hope it won't be too heavy. I thought it would be such a great idea. At the moment I have it in one expandable file thingy but it is jam packed, and I mean JAM packed.


Then we headed off to The Coffee Club for lunch. This has only just opened in Rockhampton and it was really busy. The carpark in the centre was full. It was nice. Nice decor and furniture, long wait for food though, 45 minutes for 3 sandwiches. Jack was pretty well behaved, we had taken some cars and things and the staff brought over some colouring in materials so he was pretty good and pretty patient until my lunch came of course. Then I had to try to eat a BLT one handed while clinging on to a wriggling, crying toddler with the other hand. He musn't have been too loud though because just as we were leaving the head waitress came over and commented on what a good boy Jack had been.


Friday night I went to Scrappy Days for a little crop night and then Saturday night there was a cyber crop at 3 Angels Scrapping so I've done a bit of scrapping this weekend. Here's my LO's and I'm actually extremely please with all of them especially the Love U one. The challenges were 1. to use red as your inspiration, 2. a frame thingy which I'm still working on, 3. a sketch challenge.
The red challenge...The sketch challenge...
And these 2 are from Friday night

Lunch and shopping

That's what Jack and I got up to today. We had a very late sleep in this morning since Owen is still on holidays and Jack had had a big screaming hissy fit in the middle of the night. And then at lunch time Jack and I headed out to meet up with Mum & Grandma and a few of my Aunties for lunch at the local Tafe restaurant. It was a good meal. For $12 you get three courses and there is plenty of choices. I had salmon mousse for entree followed by a selection of wet dishes and various salads and then a black forest slice with chocolate mouse for desert. It was quite tasty, some of the salads were really unique.

Then Jack and I went to do a bit of retail therapy. Well I had actually just planned on grabbing some groceries and socks for Jack but I ended up getting him a shirt as well and 2 tops for myself. So we had a bit of a browse around and bought some cheap kids CD's and some coloured pens and then headed to Woolies to grab some groceries. It was a nightmare. Jack refuses to stay in the trolley and jumps between wanting to push and ride the trolley or crawl on the floor or run down the aisles. Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh. It took forever and then he wanted to be carried and I had to push a full trolley one handed whilst carrying a 14kg wriggling toddler. I reckon my arm muscles have probably quadrupled since having Jack. And of course he fell asleep about 200 metres from the shopping centre.

Anyhoo, I came home and put him to bed and then popped on my massaging slippers while I made a delicious bacon and mushroom rissotto for dinner. These slippers are great, they just vibrate and they are a little bit loud but my feet felt so much better. I just dread thinking what time Jack is going to go to bed tonight. Oh well.

Here's a picture of Jack in his cute little Wags sleepsuit which he kept on for about 10 minutes before demanding that I take it off. It was cute while it lasted.

A couple of Digi Lo's

Since I never seem to get near my scrap desk lately I'm doing digi's instead.

Using Rhonna Farrer's Splish Splash freebie kit, journalling spot by Kellie Mize & word art by Tina Chambers, the word art is so sweet, it reads " Each child is like a butterfly in the wind. Some can fly higher than others, but each one flies the best it can. Why compare once again the other? Each one is different. Each one is special. Each one is beautiful."

Using the Chunky Monkey kit by April Bern

And these two are of Ryn's gorgeous kids for the photo swap over at EB.

Danielle Engerbretson's Verona freebie and the frame cluster is from Welli Designs and I've altered it a little
Weeds & Wildflowers Being Me kit, this is the great one I was talking about the other day.

Ok, nighty night.

Sometimes I'm glad I have such a small house

I dream of having my big Mexican inspired two story home but on days like today, cleaning days, I'm glad my house is soooo small. I bought my second ever digi kit yesterday from Weeds & Wildflowers called Being Me and after hours and hours of downloading & timing out (we're over our high speed download quota for the month) I finally finished downloading it this morning. It's taken me until just after lunch to finish cleaning the house and I even ignored the bathroom (only because I sorted all my dirty washing all over the floor and you can't get in there). So finally I got to have a play with it and it is GORGEOUS!! I just know I'm going to use it heaps. I've done one LO with it already but it's for a photo swap so I can't show it yet.

But here's some things I can show, paper LO's though. The first one is a scraplift of a LO I saw on 2 Peas but I'm not sure who it was by because it was ages ago. I really love it and I love these MME Magnolia papers. I got some really nice pp yesterday actually. Anyhoo, how hot is my husband?!? :P


This is my third DT LO for Scrappy Days

And the detail of the flower.
And this is for my friend Tricia, so Tricia if your reading this close your eyes. It's a paper version of a digi LO I did for her. The fabulous photo was taken by my friend Michelle. And did you notice I used some of my gorgeous bargain crochet lace.


Well I have to go and find something to wear. I'm going to the beach with some of the girls from work for dinner at the sailing club tonight. Owen is on babysitting duty which might be a bit trying for him I think since he'll probably be tired because he camped last night, in the freezing cold, at Raglan for the airshow today. Lucky he's on holidays.

Want to see how I earn my crust?

These are some of my favourite rooms at work. I'm a merchandiser/salesperson. It's a fab job. Love it!! I only work two days a week which is perfect and I get to shop like crazy buying new stock for the store.

And a digi before bed...

Here we go... I just love the pink background paper. It rocks.

Shaky papers and swirls by Kim De Smet, overlay border by Kirsty Wiseman and recoloured Adorable Mummy crochet flowers by Scrapkut Designers.

A few LO's to show

Jack had a huge sleep this afternoon so I did some scrapping. I've got 3 layouts to show and another one that I just need to get some ribbon for. It's been a very productive afternoon. One of them is a scraplift of the digital LO I did the other day. I'm really pleased with these LO's actually, the photos are pretty shocking though.

The Show!!

Well despite the awful weather today we still went to the show and apart from it being incredibly wet and sloshy it was good. Jack had an absolute ball. I think his brain was probably almost in overload. When we first got there we went and got Jack an id bracelet from the police which he was not very happy about. He tried to chew it off most of the day. We had forgotten to take his dummy with us so the bracelet was probably a good oral distraction for him. We went and checked out the Captain Feathersword (not the real one, I was pretty dissapointed about that) which Jack seemed to enjoy.
After that we went back to the start of the show and Jack went on his first ride with my neice Rasharna. It went pretty fast for a kids ride I thought but after the first or second lap he seemed to enjoy it. Especially since he had Mum, Dad, Grandma Joy, Great Grandma Jean, Great Aunt Jenny and Aunt Karen yelling and clapping at him everytime he came around. Rasharna was such a good girl to go on with him, she said it was the most boring ride she'd been on in her life.

Next we stopped in off for some dagwood dogs and waffles. A show favourite of mine. Jack had his first ever dagwood dog and he seemed to enjoy it. He knocked Daddy's dagwood dog out of his hand though and Daddy had to go and get another one. So while we were waiting for Owen to get back Jack kept us all entertained with his stunning dancing technique. I swear that child hears music in his head. Interpretive dance would be the best description. Lots of big swinging arms and skip/jumping. It's hilarious to watch.

The rest of the day was spent sloshing through puddles and checking out the pavilions along with playing various ball in mouth games. There were the clowns...

And the panthers...

And my favourites, the monkeys...

Here is Jack with Owen holding his best prize of the day, a little brown monkey.

We also had a couple of turns on the pick a duck game so we ended up with a great haul. We've got 2 stuffed fish, 2 monkeys, 2 plastic swords, a set of superhero figures, a parachute guy, a duck, a gekho and a ladybird. All great treasures to be sure. We also got the Thomas the tank engine showbag which I didn't think was a bad deal. For $19.50 you get a cap, a little pull along bag, a hopper ball, a puzzle, a torch and a magic board.
He also had a couple of different rides. He drove the train in the rain. It was getting into the night though so on one pass by I saw him doing the extended blink so Owen and I had to start yelling at him every time around so that he wouldn't fall asleep sitting up.

Then we went in the truck on the merry-go-round. It was one cool looking truck. He seemed to really like it but I think he may have licked the steering wheel. We also went on the traditional horse and carriage carousel.

We watched Owen have a turn on the dodgem cars along with my brother and his two kids. When they had finished there ride Owen and my nephew Joe had both left their cars in reverse so we had to hang around to watch the next unexpecting riders. Cheeky buggers. We ended up seeing the fire works which were great. And then we headed home and of course Jack fell asleep within a couple of blocks. I love the show, it's fun.
So that was out day.
And here are a couple of LO's. A very simple digi of Jerry the Giraffe, which is one of Jack's favourite toys. The inked edge has been cut off two sides though for some reason, anyhoo, the papers are by Jeanie Papai and the star and staples are by kskdesigns.
And this is my LO for Ngaire Bartlem's Beautiful Like a Rainbow challenge. You should check it out, it's great stuff.

Okie dokie, I'm off to bed.
Ciao

Out of the mouth of babes...

My funny little fella has been coming out with some wacky things lately. He's got such a great vocabulary range.
Last night we got fish and chips for dinner and I was in the kitchen plateing up some salad to go with it and had the fish & chips package open and Jack dragged a chair in to the kitchen cause he loves to help me cook. He hops up on the chair, has a look at all the plates and then spots the chips and he says, "Wow Mummy, that looks fantastic". It was hilarious. He used the most excited voice.
And then this afternoon Owen brought Jack in to work to pick me up and they were a bit early. I was in the boss's office with a rep and Jack stomps on in to say hello with Daddy close behind. The rep commented on how much Jack looks like his father and I said "Yeah, he's a spit out of his mouth", so what does Jack do...he spat on the floor. Gross I know but cute as. He's only recently learned how to spit so I was pretty impressed. Luckily it was only a little spit.
On the subject of work, we got some of the nicest stuff in today from Shanghaiedhttp://www.shanghaied.com.au/. We got some shadow boxes with carved jade "chops" stamps and another one with a carved ox bone opium pipe. They look fantastic. We also got some great vases in the most gorgeous marmalade orangish colour with cute butterflies all over them and some gorgeous black and white ginger jars.
Our local show is on for the next couple of days and wouldn't you believe it, it's bloody raining!! And it looks like it will rain tommorrow too which is the public holiday. It will be all muddy and yucky which is sooooo dissapointing. I really hope the rain clears. I have always loved going to the show. The whole atmosphere is sooo cool and the sounds and smells and the dagwood dogs. Love it!! And Captain Feathersword is going to be ther too which Jack would be so excited about. Oh I really hope it dosn't rain tomorrow.

OMG!! I got some bargains today!!

Jack & I went to the markets with Mum today and I got some absolute bargains. I saw this gorgeous crochet lace and so I picked out 2 and asked the lady if they sold by the half metre and she tells me the price on the card is for the whole card!!! I'm like, "Are you crazy woman", well I didn't say it out loud but I thought it so I ended up buying 3 cards(2 were $3.50 and 1 was $1.80). There must be about 3 metres on each card. I was stoked!!

I was checking out the fudge(I love fudge) when out of the corner of my eye I spotted this gorgeous retro kids wall hanging. So I mosyied (how the hell do you spell that?) on over thinking that it was going to have a ridiculous price on it and it was tagged at $2. Bargain I think to myself and get out my money to hand over and the woman on the stall says, "You can have it for $1 because you'll have to wash it, it's a bit dirty". Crazy!!! It's about 1.2 metre x half a metre and it's soooo cute.

So then were looking around and stopped at this little jewellery booth where it looked like the lady had cleaned out all her old brooches and things (she did have some new things too) and I got this adorable little deer pin. It's soooooo cute. I'm going to use it on a Christmas LO with some Basic Grey Blitzen papers. And it was only $1. Crazy!!!!!!!!

So there you go, there's my bargains for the day.

We're off to have dinner with some friends.

Ciao

Congratulations to....

Okay, thanks everyone for leaving comments over the last couple of days I really appreciate it.

And now to announce the winner...

The winner is...

Kaysie!!!

Congratulations Kaysie. Keep an eye out for the postman. This is what's on it's way!! I hope you'll like it.

I've been glued to the computer all day

Well it feels like it anyway. Anyhoo, another digi Lo from me.

Credits: Nina Noblecast paper, Jessica Gorny paper, Debbie Fisher Cardboard, A Langpap brush, Shabby Princess ribbon and stamp, Tabby Lewis folded ribbon.