Reflections

Happy New Year!

From our home to yours . . . with the fondest of wishes for a happy, healthy & prosperous 2008!

Here are the boys enjoying their annual tradition of having sparklers on New Year's Eve. We also usually let them have party poppers whilst we closely supervise them, but after a few of them failed to 'pop' when the strings pulled straight out and three others back fired onto our fingers (and even left a slight little burn mark) we decided to refrain from popping the rest for our own safety - I don't think I'll be buying them in a hurry again!

Until next time . . .

Happy New Year!

It's over for another year!

Here's hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was kind to you all?

Ours was lovely and relaxing . . . we spent it with my parents at their place and my brother and his family were there as well. It was so nice to have everyone together on Christmas morning and being able to share in the delight of the kids inparticular, opening their Christmas presents. Of course everyone got spoilt!

The food was delicious - Christmas Dinner in the evening consisted of Spit Roasted Pork, Roasted Turkey Breast, Roast Potatoes, Pumpkin and Parsnip and some peas and beans as well . . . very very yummy! Dessert? Well that consisted of Plum Pudding, Custard and Ice-Cream OR homemade Trifle . . . yum! Whilst I love the smell of plum puddings and fruit cakes, I'm not all that partial to them, so Trifle was my choice!

As you can imagine, our camera's all worked overtime - nothing unusual there - *grin* - and whilst I have downloaded them from the camera, I am yet to sort through them all and find all my favourites. I did find this one though of my parents' Christmas Tree that Santa very kindly took for me after he left all the presents sitting underneath it!

Since getting back home, we've been spending some quality 'family' together . . . the weather has been warm - it's meant to be warmer today too - 38 degrees celcius - so it's been great to have the pool all set up and in use. Stuart set up the gazebo (shade cover) over the top of the pool the other night, so it's nice to know the boys can be out there in the heat of the day BUT safe from being sunburnt. Actually, that reminds me, I must take some photos of it all set up like it is.

On the scrapping front, I got some Grungeboard for Christmas - YAY - that I'm looking forward to getting creative with . . . mmm . . . maybe later today even . . . anyway - I'll be sure to share when I do!

Until next time . . .

Merry Christmas!

It's time for me to sign off for a few days as we all spend this festive time with family . . . BUT before I do, I wanted to take a moment to thank-you each and every one of you for taking an interest in my blog and for letting me share my life and creativity with you all.

I know I'm a little behind in catching up on all the lovely comments you have written of late BUT I promise I will reply to them all soon - I do so value you taking the time to leave them!

As a parting little creative idea, here's a decorated tin I created last year to house all the hooks that I use to hang our decorations on our Christmas Tree (I don't think I've shared it already)

Until next time . . . from our happy home to yours . . . Merry Christmas!

Decorated Teachers' Journal

Well . . . school and work are over for this year and I must admit, it's so nice to have everyone home - the boys are so excited that Stuart is now on holidays for a while . . . it has been a while since he's had a break from work!

With the end of school and Pre-School, comes the abundance of work books and art work that makes it's way home too. Whilst I'd dearly so lovely to keep quite a bit of it, it's just not practical.  I decided to get the boys a box each to house all their work and we've some time going through all James's bits and pieces stacking it in the box. Adam's box I sorted the other day and it's so nice to have it all tucked away in it's own special place.

Speaking of school, I thought I would share one of the decorated Teachers' Journals I did this year -

As you can see, I kept them very simple BUT they were very well received! Here's a close-up shot -

Here's a shot of the inside cover - a quote, photo and thank-you message (that I have edited out the school name) -

Until next time . . .

{Friday} 'Scraps' Card Challenge

Just a quick post from me today to share my {Friday} 'Scraps' Card Challenge . . .

This time I grabbed a piece of red shimmer cardstock from my red bag of scraps, some gold braids and some of my leftover Christmas blossoms and rubons to whip up another Christmas card I needed -

Until next time . . .

December CLUB Scrappit

Yes . . . the December CLUB Scrappit newsletter is now on the Scrappit site - you can check it out here!

Here's a couple of sneak peaks of 2 of the 5 projects that I did for it - you'll have to go and check out the newsletter itself if you want to see the other things I did . . . oh and you must take a look at Sharon's work with Plaster - I would never have thought to incorporate that into my papercraft projects! Check out the newsletter here!

Some of you might remember my pink candle cards from a few weeks back - I've loved making these since then and find they are a great way to use up leftover strips - just add a little embroidery over the top of plain colours and viola!

Instead of adding bling to the candle flame like I have done in the past, I chose to add some little self-adhesive pearls . . . so simple but quite effective I think!

My second contribution is this page of my niece . . . it's got hidden journaling at the moment BUT I'm actually thinking of changing it to some strip journaling in the top left hand corner - mmm - not sure . . . will think about that some more.

The wavey corners in the top left and bottom right are actually handstitching - I'm afraid the scan really doesn't do it justice though . . . here's a close-up shot too -

On the home front, I've finally finished off the last of the bits & pieces I wanted to do at our local Pre-School now that my role as President has ended. Adam had his break-up party yesterday - he's so excited that he's "No longer a Kinder boy" - now I just get asked, "How many sleeps until I go to school!"

The new Committee actually had a meeting tonight (which I also attended) and I must say that the new President seems to have things well in order - it's funny to know that it's the end of an era - both our boys will be at school next year - goodness me!

In terms of being ready for Christmas - things are finally falling into place - 99% of my Christmas shopping is done (I just have to pick up something tomorrow that was being printed), my cards have been all been written and sent AND the only other thing left to do is wrap the gifts . . . I love that part . . . and do some Christmas baking & chocolate making with the boys! How are your festive plans progressing?

Until next time . . .

Such a busy weekend!

Here’s hoping everyone’s Christmas preparations are coming along nicely – I’m done except for all the wrapping – yippee!

Goodness we had a busy weekend . . . hence my absence here on my blog since last week!

Saturday we headed to Melbourne to pick up James’ Go Kart engine which was having a little work done to it and I finished off our Christmas shopping whilst we were down there too. Then it was back to my parents place to drop off the boys who were having a sleepover there whilst Stuart & I went out dinner on Saturday night for his work break-up.

So, Saturday night we had a lovely dinner and got home at about 3.30am - *yawn* - just a quiet night for me since I was the one driving us home afterwards BUT boy, was it hard to get motivated yesterday - more sleep was definitely required! Anyway – once I did get up and got organised, I headed back to my parents place (about an hour away) where we had lunch and then I later brought the boys back home again. We then had to unpack, I got tea and then did the last writing on my Christmas cards before falling into bed last night absolutely exhausted! I think I'll need this week to recover! *grin*

So . . . I know it's short and sweet today but I promise to pop back sometime tomorrow and share a couple of the Christmas gifts I've made for the boys teachers!

Until next time . . .

Gold on White Christmas Cards

Just a quick post today to share my Christmas Card design for the majority of my Christmas cards this year.

Some of you might remember when I went to Paperific back in October, I mentioned that I'd picked up this cute Christmas Tree stamp for my cards this year. Well - here it is in action!

I decided to keep my cards relatively simple, mainly due to time restraits BUT I wanted them to also have a stylish kind of quality to them. I ended up using white textured card for the cards, gold card for the braid and image matting, a gold embossed stamped image, gold braid and some Christmas Greeting stickers - like I said, very simple but I think that they look quite stylish in real life!

One of the cards has an all gold braid -

And the other features a gold and red braid -

Actually - the photos probably don't highlight the glitteryness (*grin* - I'm sure that's not a real word - *grin*) of the gold, but I'm sure if you use your imagination, you'll get the general idea.

Some of the cards also feature small brads studded here and there into the tree - gold on the gold braid cards and red on the red braid cards, which look like little baubles - quite cute . . . it's a bugger I've sent those ones without taking a photo BUT I need to make a few more so will try to remember to include the brads so that you can see what I mean!

I really wanted to work in silver and electric blue, which are the colours on our Christmas Tree but it was near impossible to find a braid trim that I liked . . . hence me going with the gold and red colour combination.

On the home front, James had his school concert last night - which was wonderful (as it is every year) - the kids really enjoy putting on their performances for the school community and you can clearly see how much work has been involved in organising their performance both by them and their teachers' as well. Oh and of course, the highlight of the evening was having Santa drop in at the end of it all!

Mmm - was that a quick post after all? *grin*

Until next time . . .

Step-By-Step Funky Wired Beads

Remember last week I'd said that I would share my Christmas Bauble once I'd completed the wired beading at the top? Well - I finally got around to taking that photo of it hanging on the tree!

AND

Another shot which shows the Funky Wired Beads in a little more detail -

 

If anyone is interested . . . I've created a Step-By-Step guide to creating my Funky Wired Beads - just click HERE

Until next time . . .

{Friday} 'Scraps' Card Challenge

Goodness - this week has certainly flown! There always seems to be just so much going on at this time of the year isn't there? Betweem Christmas shopping, a Christmas photo shoot, Christmas card writing, baking, break-up get-togethers and so on, life is certainly never dull is it?

Yesterday we had our second last Longford Scrappers scrapbooking day and aside from working with the same page kits (which I still need to complete), Janet also showed everyone how to make some adorable Christmas baubles. I'd seen some great ones online and took a different approach with decorating mine using silver beads, sequins, and wire - I'm going to finish off the wire bead work tonight and I promise to share the finished Christmas bauble tomorrow! So simple but so very effective too!

Despite being relatively busy this week, I've managed to get my {Friday} 'Scraps' Card Challenge done - this time a card for a friend's son's birthday over the weekend . . . here's hoping you have a wonderful birthday Ryan!

To create this card, I firstly found a PSP image on the internet and then edited it to add a two-toned colour PSP screen that I then typed the 'Happy Birthday' greeting onto before printing. I then simply matted the photo onto some blue cardstock, then onto the two coloured matted background and added a chipboard No. 9 and some ribbon trim to the bottom. Another simple one BUT it's so great to be using up more of my 'scraps' at the same time!

Until next time . . .