Day to Day

Is your name on this list!?

Hello to all the lovely Gratitude Swap girls :) 

I'd really LOVE to close off this swap so if your name is on the list below please contact me ASAP and let me know if you have received your swap items!  It's quite stressful trying to chase everybody up - so please drop me an email or just leave a message on this blog post.  I apologise if your name is on the list and you've already contacted me - if you think you have emailed me previously about this then please leave a comment here so you can ensure I find your message this time :)

goodsellmx@internode.on.net (Email me here)

These are people that I've tried to contact and am yet to hear from:

Amy Kennedy-Penuel http://www.taitaiknits.typepad.com 

Trishia Gallardo trishiag.blogspot.com  Trishia I need to know if you have mailed your gratitude swap off and also whether you've received one - I've tried to contact you several times, please email me.

Kat Storey (no blog)

Going to the dog beach

 

So we took Trooper back to the dog beach this afternoon.  The weather was warm, a little cooler than earlier in the day, but nice.  James & Bella were quite excited to discover a shallow stream of water (almost like a mini rapid) going out to the ocean, so they dived in clothes and all. 

 

The photos don't do it justice, but the stream was really fast and if you were clever enough you could lie on your stomach and be dragged along with the waves.

 

I don't have a photo of this (I think the sheer panic prevented me from snapping a pic), but Bella had to be rescued by Daddy (who jumped in shoes and all - yay for Dad) as her lightly framed body proved too small for the strong waves and they were dragging her out to the ocean.  Trooper was also caught in the rip (only he had to rescue himself). 

 

 

For a young puppy I have to say that Trooper was extremely well behaved, he listened well and didn't run away with the other dogs.  I'm really not an animal lover (I like to look and not touch), so it's been a big adjustment for me to have a dog around.  I'm getting there slowly though.

 

 

 

Thankyou also for all your thoughts and suggestions about the 25 days of Christmas Craft :)

Battles, Beth & beach.

 

The day started off early with a huge Star Wars setup (spanning two bedrooms and the passage). 

 

I never did quite like that Darth Maul man - looks like he has quite a few storm troopers captive here.

 

Jabba the hut and co awaiting a battle.

 

The bounty hunters hanging out on a mexican hat.

 

A few more storm troopers guarding the area.

 

Plus a couple of Tauntauns hanging out near the Littlest Pet Shop backdrop. 

After the Star Wars battle was done and dusted we had a visit from Beth & Miss Georgia (no photos) followed by an afternoon walk on the dog beach with Trooper.

 

 

Plus a layout share that I created for this post over at the Aussie Scrap Source blog.

 

These photos were from last Christmas. I find even though I keep pretty much up to date with my scrapbooking, Christmas is always something that I fall behind with.

 

 

Since this post is already all over the place, I wanted to mention that I'm starting to receive emails from people asking if I'm repeating my 25 days of Christmas craft that I did last year on my blog.  Well, I'm not really sure that I have 25 more ideas stored up in my head to be honest.  I'd really like to do something on here, but I'm just not sure what. 

If anybody has some ideas of what they'd like (scrapbooking, sewing, gift ideas or anything else) leave a comment here or email me :)

Cousins

Yesterday was a public holiday in southern Tasmania (show day) so we had James and Bella's cousins up for a play and barbecue (plus their Mum & Dad).  The weather was glorious and the kids spent a fair amount of the day on the trampoline.  Bonnie can climb up by herself now - eek.

 

Bonnie in the dress we gave her for her 2nd birthday.

 

James - I love this photo of him cracking up at Bonnie unable to stand on the trampoline because everyone was bouncing so much.

 

These little people get along incredibly well.  There is never any fighting over toys or who does what, they just all play together and enjoy each other's company. 

 

I also scrapped this layout for Bonnie's album last week.  I've used the Delightful range by Little Yellow Bicycle.  You can check out some other layouts by the Design Team (and other artists) using Little Yellow Bicycle papers and products here. 

   

 

 

A few other things before I go:

- Thankyou for asking Helen - the school fair was a great success.  We had beautiful weather for it and everybody raised a lot of money for the school.

- Thankyou for the awards and tags - I'm still behind in emails and I will get to them in a few blog posts or so.

- Rowena - if you're reading this, I'm sorry that I haven't replied yet, but thankyou for emailing me those beautiful photos of your family.  I will try and get that weather tree out this week!!

- Gratitude swap girls - I hope to round up the swap by next week, so please ensure that you've emailed me once you've received your goodies.

- Kathleen I sent you an email thanking you for the beautiful presents that arrived in our mail box.  I haven't heard back from you yet, so I wondered if you perhaps aren't receiving emails from me? 

Melbourne photos

After finally downloading the photos from our holiday I realised that we actually didn't take a lot of pics from this trip.  Next holiday I must take more, because I've already forgotten half of what we did when we were away. 

We bought a new game (river crossing) in Melbourne and loved it so much that we also went back to the same store and bought an add on pack.  James breezed through the challenges pretty much (here he is playing) where as the rest of us had a little trouble getting through (actually some of us had BIG trouble getting through lol).

 

Both of the kids had their own spending money and one of Bella's favourite purchases was this felt pencil case and badges that she bought (to add to her badge collection).

 

We also met up with Phoebe and Alex who are exceptionally cute and funny.  Bella was especially taken with Phoebe's scrapbooking desk (which I don't have a photo of) and hasn't stopped whinging and nagging for one since we've been home. It's now written on her Christmas list in BIG letters (if I had a dollar for everytime she's mentioned it I'd be incredibly rich by now).  The other highlights for Bella were the pair of cool rollerskates that Phoebe owned, their dog, how Phoebe is in love with James (Phoebe has more than likely moved onto a new boy since then) and a big topic was our trip to Ikea together.   

 

You might notice that the boys weren't overly excited about having their photo taken (and Alex really wanted me to take his head on the side for some reason lol).

I have a couple of photos from the Melbourne Museum.  We really loved this and could have spent a lot longer there.  We also watched a movie at the Imax theatre, but 3d always make me feel a little giddy (and made Rich a bit sick).  James and Bella enjoyed it though.

 

 

A cool seat that we found:

 

Sadly, that's about it for photos (except for the million motor bike pics that Rich took at Phillip Island).   Well, I'm pooped and off to bed, night night :)

To market, to market - day 3

 

I'm still really snowed under working on last minute fair preparations, so my email inbox is looking extremely sad at the moment. I'm sorry if you've asked a question and I haven't answered yet.  Next week hopefully I'll catch up a little more.

I'm also behind in following up all the lovely emails and photos that you've been sending about the gratitude swap - these I will definitely be onto next week so we can see where everyone is at with the swap.  If you have not received a package from your partner yet, please contact them immediately and ensure that they have sent it.  If you have received your package please be sure to email me and let me know so that I can cross you off the list.  Thanks.

The pillows in the above pic are some more goodies that I made for the school fair.  They're nice and quick to make and help fill up the trestle tables nicely.  

Below are some sweet finger puppets (there are 20 all up) that I thought I'd share.  A lovely lady made these and donated them to stall.  Also a photo of some easy santa decorations that my mother in law whipped us for us to sell.

 

 

Plus a quick layout before I head to bed :)

 

 

 

The papers are Rose Moka from the Appel de la Nature range combined with Technique Tuesday's Fundamental Swanky Frames.  I'm especially fond of the little Jolly Snowman stamp which is by Hero Arts.

To market, to market - day 2

I still haven't downloaded our holiday photos (they're on our second camera), but here are some more school fair craft pics that we worked on today.  James was at a friend's house and Bella worked really hard all day to help me.  We rewarded ourselves with a nice long walk down to the beach tonight (the whole family + trooper) where we ate fish & chips before walking home just before dark.

 

Here is Bella painting the cardboard swords we cut out.  They are now nice and gold and all sparkly.

 

Then some button bagging up (to go in the cool craft showbags we're making).

 

 

Then we started making up some balls of playdough to sell.  We ran out of supplies, but hopefully can add to this batch later in the week.

 

 

The cool craft bags - they'll be filled with some fun craft items for children: fabric, pipecleaners, buttons, pom poms, some scrapbooking papers cut up into 6x6 size - not sure what else yet.  I dug out some old foam stamps to create the title.

 

Just incase you're wondering what our lounge room looks like - multiply the following photo by 20 :)

 

Feeling sad tonight - I've lost my eternity ring somewhere :(

It's my birfday!

"It's my birfday!" (It's my birthday!) was Bonnie's favourite thing to say today and what a great thing to want to repeat over and over on your special day miss bear. We love you sweet thing :)

 

Here she is, miss divine herself turning two - sporting some chocolate and a nice big forehead graze from a trolley incident yesterday :(

 

Some things to remember:

At 2 you love Dora the Explorer (your Mummy baked you a Dora cake for your party), you are pretty much a mini whirlwind, dare devil and chief explorer.  We love it when you say "I wanna tuddle (cuddle)" and ofcourse "It's my birfday!".  You care greatly for handbags and putting things in and out of handbags is a favourite past time of yours.  When visiting our house you suck me right in everytime by insisting on a cookie from our pink cookie jar (and who am I to say no to this), you love getting James to play Dora on 'You Tube' for you and climbing on that big trampoline of ours by yourself (did you know I may have an early heart attack if you keep this up?!).  We just LOVE you Bonnie.

 

Here you are with your Mummy (we love her too):

 

Plus some pics of James and Bella at your party:

 

 

 

 

It was so nice to see Beth (we love her too!) again (she's been hibernating in her new job for a couple of months):

To market to market to buy a fat hen

No actually, just an upcoming school fair, but I thought that sounded like a great blog post title ;)

Our lounge area has transferred itself into a serious last minute craft room for the school fair.  It's going to stay that way for the next week - bits and pieces all over the floor, ironing board up and covered, dining table choc-a-block (not sure where we will be eating) - actually glancing around the room it all resembles a bomb shelter rather than a craft room.  Here's a snippet of what we're working on:

 

Pirate show bags (we sprayed the skulls on using a mask) containing weathered maps (printed off the internet, cut roughly out, stained with watered down coffee and sprayed with glimmer mist) before being rolled up and tying with a scrap of fabric. There is also a leather eye patch, cardboard sword sprayed gold (still to do), fabric bandana and a fabric waistband (still to do) in the bag.

 

We had a production line of pirate lucky dips to pack:

 

These packaged up nicely (we used a pirate stamp from Kikki K on the front) and they look cute in James' old treasure box that Rich made for a party we once had.

 

Some simple needle and pin holders using my tutorial here.

 

Plus a box of sweet bears.  Myself and the other Mums at school cut these out, my mil stitched them and a lovely lady knitted the scarves.

Designed by .....

A couple of months ago I was asked by the lovely Ann Lederhose if I'd like to have a play with a couple of her beautifully 'Designed by Ann Lederhose' chipboard designs.  YES! How could I not - they were so sweet (literally).  I posted a pic of the designs I received on my blog (at the time) and finally got around to scrapbooking a layout last night. 

 

 

I used Ann's lolly chipboard designs on this page. They are really cute and come with extra chipboard lolly middles which means you can layer the chipboard to get a really cool effect.

 

 

You can go here to see more of Ann's chipboard designs and find out the online stores where you can purchase it from.

Also last night I had the pleasure of working with some of Petrina McDonald's brand new chipboard line (Designed by Petrina McDonald).  Petrina's designs are really cool too and for this layout I used the little birdie (Paisley Little Chick), inking the top with an inkpad and then adding a layer of dimensional magic (to make it nice and shiny).

   

 

 

Now, to have a look at the rest of Petrina's gorgeous designs and find out where you can purchase them from you need to go here.

What I love about Petrina and Ann's chipboard is that it's been designed in Australia (by Aussie girls) and also produced in Australia.  Cool hey!  The chipboard is lovely, smooth and very easy to cover, paint, ink, glam up or just keep nice and natural.

So, what are you waiting for...goooOooo shopping :)