Mikelinz Blog

eek July

2010-07-09T18:05:00.001-07:00

Well we all know that I am not a great blogger. Somehow the days go by and nothing gets written. But perhaps occasionally will suffice. I don't think I am ever going to have a blog to rival the Pioneer Woman, but perhaps my occasional little waffles will do.
Currently it is miserable Winter here in Melbourne. Yesterday was not so miserable and we sat out in the sun and enjoyed the break in the weather, but today back to dreary. We took lots of photos yesterday, because the sun made everything so much better looking. And of course my brother is staying and he bought his brand new Nikon the day before so we were busy playing with his new toy.
I have tried to fit in a bit of scrapbooking here and there, although I seem to be having a lot of problems with Finishing things. Starting is ok, but getting it done is a challenge. I have had a few photoshop issues where it has closed suddenly and then i forget to go back and reopen the layout... another UFO. I suspect that photoshop is responding to the fact that I have been experimenting with editing RAW images and of course you get 2 or 3 of those open and it is having to work hard. I bought a bundle of actions from Paint the Moon designs the other day and have been having a ball playing with them. I think it might be the first time i have actually paid for actions and I am totally rapt. There is something so satisfying about pushing play and watching your photo edit itself.
So today I finally finshed a new layout, using a whole bunch of kits from Shabby Princess. I love Shabby Princess stuff and have been buying her kits ever since I discovered how wonderful her freebies are. (does that makes sense?) When people tell me they are taking up digiscapping or want to try it, I always send them there, because she has so much great free stuff that you can certainly get a real taste for digital scrapbooking. The newest kit Hopscotch is a beautiful bright, fun kit with lots of great elements. It is included in the credits for my layout called Four.

I used the Piece of cake template available on the Shabby Princess blog, to enter the template challenge for July. I love what I managed here and I love that I finshed it!
Shabby Princess Blog Template Challenge.

A backwards blogger

2010-05-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

I decided at the beginning of the year to blog more. And here I am in May with no blogs to my credit. And yet for the last 2 weeks I have faithfully kept a travel journal which when I think about it would be so much more interesting online. Perhaps it might give other people ideas of places to visit, adventures to try, even hotels we could recommend.

It all started way back around February I think when I decided that I was going to drag my gorgeous and hard working husband on holiday. Something Eastern seemed appealing and flights were advertised for quite reasonable amounts. Kuala Lumpur seemed a pretty good option, and we also fancied Singapore, Hong Kong... man what didn't we fancy? Finally we decided on Thailand becuase it seemed to have so many options. And then Jetstar had a flight special that was about half price and we booked it. 3 weeks in Thailand, including 10 days in Krabi province by the sea just relaxing.

We took 6 weeks leave and worked hard for Belmore nursing agency making the money to pay for the holiday. Luckily there was a lot of work and we were able to do some serious saving. Mike decided that if we were going to Bangkok we should check out the dental options as it is about 1/3 of the price of Australia, particularly for fancy stuff like crowns, bridges and implants.

I can't even begin to tell you how many hours it took me to book all our accommodation. Bangkok has a plethora of hotels providing everything you could posibbly want. Lacking any knowledge of the geography of Bangkok it was hard to figure out where we wanted to be and what it was we needed out of a hotel.

Finally we settled on the President Park which we totally impressed with. The price was very reasonable. They met us at the airport with the cute little sign board, whisked us off in the limousine and gave us such spectacular servide for the whoe 4 days. The hotel is built in multiple buildings and the doorman would open the door for you and then rush out to ensure the road was clear for you to cross safely. They doormen were delightful, so charming and so helpful. It was a wonderful experience.

So what I have decided is to copy out my travel journal day by day... it does mean you will be getting the details a week or so out, but if i am really organised u might get some pics.

What I really wanted to achieve with this blog is to include some reviews of some of the great services and accomodation we used because I found other peoples reviews invaluable in planning my vaccation.
So you can consider this the preface and stand by for more info.

Happy new year

2009-12-31T17:42:00.001-08:00

Yes for us here it is now the New year, 2010. I will have to remember to write it correctly when I go to work this afternoon. Despite it being the holiday season there is no let up in terms of work. Greg and Mike both started at 7am this morning and I am heading in for an afternoon shift. Still on the plus side the money is always good for working public holidays.

The new year didn't start with much joy for me as I am suffering from a miserable cold. I was asleep well before midnight. But I have some hopes, maybe some sketchy resoutions for the new year. Perhaps principally I want it to be a better year than last year which was overshadowed by lots of problems with my back. I am working hard at my physio and plan to do more swimming to strengthen all those core muscles which they tell me will help. We now have two children (young adults i suppose) out working which has changed the dynamics of our household somewhat. Greg has been very busy at Bunnings while Caitlin isn't getting the hours she needs from Subway. She is hoping to do an Aged Care Course this year as there is plenty of work in that field. If she likes it then she will hopefully go on to do nursing. She is working hard on getting her hours up on her Learners Drivers licence. I am impressed with her driving and she is gaining more and more confidence. She drove us to the Airport on Christmas Day! Mike is planning on doing Uni again in the second semester. Before that we have to take 8 weeks holiday. Well, he does as he has accrued too much. We are trying to work out the logistics of a rural short term contract. I think it would be a really interesting experience. Ben's future is still up in the air because his mother was disorganised and hasn't completed his enrolment for boarding school. In fact we still haven't figured out if we can afford it! Certainly it would be good for all of us and he would really like to go. Will have to wait a few more days until they reopen to see if it is still doable.

Otherwise it is life as normal. I plan to do more photography this year, I would really like to improve my skills. My scrapbooking seems to have come to a screeching halt and I can't seem to create anything I like. I am finding it totally frustrating. I have decided to focus on cleaning up my hard drive and sorting my stuff out until I get some inspiration back. I am totally sick of staring at poor pages that I know are lame but are the best I can manage.

I have been reading a lot, all sorts of stuff. Having finished my library books I have been reading Caitlin's books which mostly seem to consist of Vampire stories. They really are most entertaining, I can see why they catch on.

Anyway work time beckons and I have to fill up the car on the way. I hope, believe that this is going to be a good year.

Just another Tuesday

2009-10-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

Although I have to say that I like tuesdays because that is our Lucus day and we try and do something fun while we have him and today Finally the weather remembered it was spring and the sun shone and it was beautiful. We went shopping over at Parahan, and then took a picnic down to the banks of the murky Yarra river and ate on a jetty where a beautiful swan came and had some nibbles of our bread. It was really lovely to see the change in the weather and feel all that warm sun. I am so over winter.
I made a page about my mum last night. I just had this sense that I wanted to write some more of my memories down for the kids. I saw the challenge on the daily digi for More with four and the crochet flowers just shrieked Jean at me. My mother was such an avid crocheter (not sure if that is a word) but she loved to crochet. She was a complete perfectionist and all her wool was colour coordinated and she would often take a whole strand off the ball to make it the right weight. It drove me nuts! She had wool everywhere. She didn't finish too many of her rugs because she was like me constantly starting new projects without finishing the last. Anyway here is my page about my mum. Hope you like it

Everthing I used in this came from the Digi files - its a real bargain at only $5.00. So much cool stuff. I picked up some yummy templates while I was there too. Worth checking out.

Just a wee note

2009-10-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

I downloaded a few actions and a story board from Coffeshop.com. there is just so much information on her site. Actions, tutorials, templates. Fascinating stuff. So here is my first storyboard. Photos from Tuesday at the beach. and that's it. nothing else to tell.

Time I checked in

2009-09-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Hi from Springlike Melbourne.
Finally I think Winter is beginning to end. I have been looking at my summer clothes a bit more closely and even managed a t shirt and cut off jeans today as it was so mild. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow, but here in Victoria that is something to celebrate because the drought has been so bad. Apparently our dams are now at 32% capacity.. that is after the last lot of rain! So I will be happy for rain because that means that maybe we could use our spa bath again instead of having to wipe the dust out. I just can't justify running it when the drought is so serious.
Anyway I am sure you don't want to read about my weather woes. I have just finished a bit of web surfing. I usually start at Ikea Goddess and see if there are any cool freebies, and that leads to blogs which leads to more blogs, which can lead to sales and specials and spending if i am not careful. But not tonight. I actually had a bit of a spend up at the weekend. The big sale at pixelcanvas for their 1st birthday was pretty good and I bought up large. Then in an inspired moment decided to reorganise my vinnie pearce stuff so now have master directories of papers and elements and wordart. I just find her products so versatile that I often mix and match.
I have to admit that when I go web browsing that there is just so much cool scrapbooking stuff out there that I have to really hold myself back. There is always new and amazing kits, and yet I have a hard drive full of amazing kits and I am trying to make a conscious effort to use what I have already got. And when I buy something new, i am trying to discipline myself to actually use it. Isn't it funny how you have tried and true stuff that you use over and over, and kits that are totally gorgeous that somehow you have never used... or is that only me?
Here's a bit of my most recent art works.

Had to make a layout of my two teenage sons making pigs of themselves with pavlova mixture. So cute. This kit is from Pure Creativity called l'il baker and plus i used her l'il baker torn papers and template set2.

And my beautiful daughter, Elizabeth. She is a bit camera shy so it is not always easy to get good photos. I think i will have to slip her a few drinks when she comes over for christmas so she will be nice and mellow... and then click!! This is all Pixel Canvas product. A mixture of Vinnie Pearce and Viva Artistry.

I decided to do a bit of digging through old photos and found these. Too cute. This is vinnie pearce's New bike kit (mostly).

You know I just love this kit. Sheroes by viva artistry (pixelcanvas). Amazing colour palette and the elements are amazing. And there is a free alpha. This is a recent photo of Caitlin. I really like it.

Have to finish off with the beautiful grandson. Lucus.. taken a couple of weeks ago as he tries to pilfer the car keys out of my drawer. He has this obsession with keys! And do you know that the fabulous Flergs, made me this Nuffing wordart. I emailed her and asked.. and she sent it back the next day. Amazing lady and so talented! I love this kit - Carver, and of course it came as this cool bundle with funky frames and glitter and all sorts of stuff.

So that is up to date photos of every one except mike me and... ahh the missing son. Michael the younger appears to have vanished again. He is the one in the NZ army. Last time i lost track of him he had been posted to the Solomon Islands and forgot to tell his mother! I do think that when boys go off to war zones they should at least let their parents know! Hopefully he will turn up in the next few days or I might have to ring his base or something... again. But no up to date photos of Michael because... he never sends me any. Bad child.

Anyway enough middle of the night ramblings. I should do some sleeping now.

Winter flu

2009-09-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

I have been so sick with this Winter's flu. I actually ended up in bed for 4 days, and finally yesterday was up and about, although I had to have a little nap in the afternoon. I don't get sick much but boy that flu really got me! I am still sniffling my way thru the days, keeping kleenex in business i guess. People keep asking me to smell things... I don't know if the milk smells off. I can't smell anything. My son has developed this habit of reading the best before dates and won't eat stuff that is past its date. Now most of us would have a look or sniff it. I know that stuff that is unopened just doesn't seem to go off, but he is convinced that it is no good after that date. I find bottles of milk pushed to the back of the fridge, because they are old! Ack why do we teach them to read!
Anyway enough of my miseries. I was planning on writing some upbeat happy stuff about HeatherT's new stuff. She makes such original scrapbooking designs that it is always exciting to use her products. So today she released Fasteners1. at Pixelcanvas (that kind of suggests that there might be more fasteners coming doesn't it?

And I made this layout, using this plus a few other HeatherT goodies (and one of Vinnie's templates)

And over at Gotttapixel, Heather has released another in her series of Tuesday templates. These are alway excellent value and she puts so much in! Heather's layout with this template was featured at Gallery standouts this week.

Here is my layout with the template using some of HeatherT's other papers.

And finally on my list is this new pack of pearly things, pack number 2 I might add Ooh shiney2 and I am sorry to say that I haven't got my layout made with these yet. But I am looking forward to using them, coz they are dead gorgeous.

No exciting freebies from me this week.. but lots of shopping tips. See you.

Another working weekend

2009-09-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Father's day here. Mike and I are both working! I guess we will celebrate in the evening. It sort of snuck up on me and I only just managed to get two of the 3 things I wanted to give him delivered before the end of the week. I am just so not good at organisation at the moment.... ok maybe never.
This is just a short little blog to say Hi and put in a little plug for some of the gorgeous kits I have been working with this week.
For Pure Creativity Designs I have made this layout with the new kit called Sea Reflections which is a collab with Anita Designs.

And for Sweet Blossom Designs I made this layout using the new September collab from Scrapthatidea called Falling into you. the photo mask is by HeatherT

I am still working really hard on my hybrid book, and am nearly finished the first one. It has been a real learning experience. I had not done any paper scrapping for so long, and it is hard to remember that once it is stuck down, it is stuck for good. It has taken me days to fix a bodgy sticker I put on the first day. I finally found something big enough to cover it!
Anyway, one more album and I can post them overseas. It does look amazing!
Now I am on a run of 7 early shifts so I am not hanging around chatting tonight....
see ya later.

Early, really early, or maybe just really late

2009-08-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

I just had this idea to make a quick, hi how are you post, and realised it is 1am. But what the heck. Why waste time sleeping when there is blogging to do. I am trying to work out if I have been doing much of interest since I blogged last. No world trips, heck no local trips. Family stuff, work, you know the drill.
I have been doing a bit of scrapbooking, although I have also been working on some hybrid albums for gifts, so I have been dabbling with mouse and tablet as well as glue and ink. It is fun to do both. But I sure do miss the undo button! Still the wonderful fun of sticking stuff down, and winding ribbons and ripping paper. So satisfying too. So Creative Team wise... The new collab kit for Scrapthatidea isn't out until September, so i can't show you my layout for that yet... I am a bit disappointed because i was really pleased with it and would like to share.
HeatherT has such a fantastic new kit out called Delicacies is full of beautiful details. Available at PixelCanvas, it is particularly stunning for heritage type layouts.

I created this layout showing my grandfather back in World War 1.

And for variety a layout of Ben, now

I also made this layout, which I was thrilled with, using Vinnies Film masks and some other bits and pieces.

And then today I made this

I thought it would be fun to celebrate this very moment, with a photo I snapped this morning.
thats it for today folks, gotta do some sleeping. Have two teenage boys sleeping over so who knows what the morning will look like.

So long since i blogged

2009-08-16T04:23:00.000-07:00

I just haven't felt like there was much to blog about recently so consequently have been very quiet. But I figure that I need to make a bit of an effort and maybe tell you a bit about my CT stuff and other excitement.
You know that it is so long since I blogged that I think it dates back to before we went to Mt Baw Baw for our snow weekend. The boys went snowboarding and the rest of us tobogganed! The photos aren't that good because the weather was pretty overcast and snowy. But it was a fun experience. Probably would have been much more fun if we had booked early so we could have stayed 3 nights in one place instead of having to shift accommodation every night! It was such hard work lugging all our stuff from one place to the other through the snow! And of course being disorganised we hadn't packed well and there was lots of bits and pieces. A nightmare i tell you! It was soooooooo expensive too. I know we could have had a week in Queenstown for the same price including ski hire etc. But you gotta try these things don't you? One of the most frustrating things was the chain hire. You have to hire chains to drive up the mountain. You don't have to put them on the car as there was no snow on the road. If you drive up without them, then they send you back down to get them. So you hire these blasted snow chains and put them in your car and then you take them back! Another good money spinner.
So.. moving on from the delights of the snow. We have been working hard since then and I have been doing lots of scrapbooking. I have now set myself a huge goal, I want to make at least 2 and preferably 4 hybrid albums by the end of the month... or at least mid September. These will be thank you gifts for the ppl we stayed with in the UK this time last year and one for each of my friends that i went with. I have been working hard and today made the first page. Will post a picture once I have it all glued down properly. I am spending a fortune buying all the supplies, had to get new paint brushes, new glue, need new ink... and it is all just so much fun to buy!

I have also been quite busy making new pages for HeatherT, I do love being on her CT because she is so creative and her kits are so different! Not only that but she has such serious talent on her team that I really feel like I need to produce the goods! (that is a positive thing!). Heather has just opened up a new store, so in addition to selling at the amazing Pixelcanvas she is also selling at gottapixel. So we have been busy getting lots of new layouts up for her kits at gotta pixel as well as the pixelcanvas ones. Certainly i was using lots of pixels! Most recently I have been playing with Schools out which incidentally is 50% off at pixelcanvas at the moment. Love the red white and blue colours, i am a bit of a primary colour nut! Here's what i came up with.

First of all here is a look at the kit:

and the matching alpha which is just way cute, is available on Heather's blog.
And here are my layouts:

Which reminds me that the last one, Train Ride hasn't been posted yet. I just forget stuff sometimes. I am getting old now you know.

I have just downloaded a beautiful new HeatherT kit called Delicacies which has the most gorgeous elements and lovely natural shades and oodles of texture. I am really looking forward to making something with it! It is in store already at pixelcanvas so don't forget to check it out.

Before I move on to my other CT projects I will take a short break to tell you how wonderful the Digital Artist Magazine is this August. Wow! For only $5 you get so many downloads that it more than pays for itself. And there is the most gorgeous kit from Lorie Davison aka Studie Lorie at scrapbookgraphics. If you have ever looked at her magnificent fantasy characters and wondered if you could create something magical, then grab DAM and download her free kit and see where all those frogs take you! I can't wait to have a play!

Now Sara of Sweet Blossom Designs has cut back a little and is now putting out her kits fortnightly. I personally think you have to be some sort of a dynamo to manage a new kit every fortnight, and how she was managing it weekly along with a job and a family!! Her new kit which has just hit the shop this week is in two parts, His days gone by and Her days gone by. It all mixes and matches and is just perfect for a heritage type layout. Lovely rich creams and pinks and blues, with aged postcards etc.

And this is the layout I made using a rather gorgeous picture of my mother which had been hand tinted. Style-wise it was a bit of a departure for me as I am usually quite linear, but I decided I wanted to try my hand at the feminine flowing look, and I am pretty happy with it.

And lastly just to had to my busy schedule I have another Ct position for Pure Creativity designs over at Digitalscrapcafe I have only done a couple of layouts for her so far but Chelcee has a lovely bright colourful style plus some gorgeous templates available in her store. Here is what I have made so far
The first one uses a kit called Going to the Beach

and the second layout is using a new colour series which Chelcee has just released. These papers are a great coordinated series in a variety of different colours. All very mix and match. To me they look like gorgeous quilting fabrics!

So.. a lovely long blog with lots of layouts. I am working on a new template for you at the moment and then i think I might have a stab at finishing off my outback kit. I got a bit hung up when I discovered that my extractions were woeful! I need to do so much more work on them. I sort of put it in a box and forgot about it for a while (figuratively speaking).
Everyone is pretty healthy and happy here, although poor Caitlin is not doing too well with her job hunting. It can be so demoralising. Still I have helped her revise her Resume tonight so hopefully that might help. I always think that it pays to make sure that they are using grown up language and have spell checked it. I am really hoping something will come up. She is a hard worker and only working one day a week she is just developing a life of leisure that really is not sustainable!
Will try to get back a bit sooner next time..

2009-07-17T05:01:00.000-07:00

After my dissatisfied rant the other day Schellie left me this comment "It's good to try to learn new things,but at the same time be satisfied with the great things you do right now. You can never fail, it's your creativity!" And i thought how true. You can't fail because it is your own creativity. And endlessly comparing yourself with others only makes yourself unhappy. In fact I have noticed that sometimes the people you admire, when you get to talk to them have the same concerns and hang ups that you do yourself.. or I do myself i guess. So I really do have to work on being satisfied with my own work and my own creativity. They did warn us when we went to the photography course that many people are less satisfied with their photography afterwards. I think for two reasons. Firstly you are so much more conscious of what you are trying to achieve, and thus unhappy when you don't achieve it. And secondly because you are branching out and trying to utilise the camera's settings, it becomes more likely that you will have dud photos when you haven't picked the right settings. I have to admit that I am now much more conscious of my photography (see more self criticism) but when you look at scrapbook galleries the first thing I am drawn to is the amazing photographs. So many beautiful pictures, so many 'perfect moments'. That is not to say that I don't have my own share of 'perfect moments', but I am greedy... and I want more. But having said that, one of the things that amazes me the most is the people who create beautiful layouts with photos that are much less than perfect. perhaps once again it is about being happy with what you have!
Ok.. enough philosophising. This week at pixelcanvas we had a great challenge to create a page using papers that look like fabrics, use stitches and buttons, sewn-on bits and baubles, felt letters and shapes...to create your page.

Journaling: Record on your page something that is really important to you. Could be a world issue, a personality trait, or a belief...
This challenge really appealed to me, perhaps it is the 'sewer' in me that liked the idea of making a stitched up page. Here's mine. I was really happy with this.

I used HeatherT's new stitching set which I might add is on sale at pixelcanvas at the moment. They have a sale on at the moment with lots of stuff for 40% off. The ecofabulous kit is over 60% off! I have used that kit so much! And I love all the 'green' stuff in it. Heather's new stitches are very cool and look very real. Worth checking them out as I think the sale finishes tomorrow.
Then using some more HeatherT product I made this layout using her template

This template is available at Gottapixel.com for only $1.00! So cheap, and while you are there have a look at the Luxuriant kit i used to make this layout.

So it is the middle of Winter here in Australia, and way down south here in Victoria it has been pretty cold and miserable. But we have had some sunshine this week which was really cheering. Lucus stayed with us on Tuesday night, so on Wednesday i asked him what he wanted to do today and he said 'go beach'. So we did. The sun was just right for a trip to the beach and Ellie (our cocker spaniel) and Lucus chased each other along the sand. Mike and I just followed along snapping lots of photos. I have been experimenting with shooting in raw and jpeg so I can adjust the white balance and settings when i import the photos. So far i have only got to the import stage and haven't experimented with using Lightroom to 'process' the photos (as described by our guru Scott Kelby). However I must see how it works, because I took some phenomenally bad photos at the snow when I had the white balance set to flourescent when we were outside in the snow. The photos are a kind of glowing blue. Oh darn.
Our two big bits of news for the week are this.. 1. Greg the 17 yr old has got a part time job (hopefully leading to full time when he finishes school this year). And 2. We went to see Harry Potter - The half blood prince. I loved it. but i am a huge HP fan.
It's Friday now and another week has slipped by, Ben's birthday looms ever closer. His requests are simple... he would like a bass guitar and amp. I did find them on ebay for under $200 but I do wonder if we should bite the bullet and pay $400 at the local shop so we can have some after sales service since Mike and I know Nothing about guitars. I couldnt even replace a string. However Ben is now keen to play in a band (once he learns to play i guess). He has a friend who has a drum kit so I guess that is half a band... Apparently there is another boy who will be singing. So nothing will do, but he needs a bass guitar so he can follow his dream! I do miss the small children stage when they were really thrilled with whatever you bought them, and sometimes they would be just as happy playing with the box the toy came in!
Well, I guess that is another enthralling installment from the Kennedys. Stay tuned..

Today

2009-07-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

Today there was a big event in my life. You have to understand that although I have been digiscrapping for some time now, I am still constantly frustrated by what I don't know. I am always admiring the skills of others and am rarely totally satisfied by my own work. But yesterday I put together a layout. In fact I did it quite quickly (and I might add with tears streaming down my face as I dealt with some of the most painful events of my life... darn more tears now). I had to put it together quickly and post it or i would have chickened out. So today when I found my layout at Gallery Standouts I was stunned. Yes it was simple, yes the journalling was heartfelt, but I just didn't expect to make the grade. Not me. So.. I was pretty thrilled, I felt really honoured to have been picked out. But here at the end of the day I still feel Dissatisfied. I just always want to do more. To know photoshop intimately and to be able to create brilliant art. Although I wonder if we are ever satisfied with our own work.. perhaps that way leads to complacency and that may not be helpful either.
I am determined to work on my photoshop skills though, I feel that by understanding my tools better I can work more effectively. So, I think it is time to work my way through some tutorials and try and learn how it all works better... Its kind of like a new years resolution for July.
So.. after that rant, if you are still reading, you may wonder if everything is all right in my world. And I guess it is. My children are going through a squabbling stage. I feel that it is totally unreasonable considering that two of them are almost adults. Why on earth do they behave like children? And the youngest one? He is talking constantly of the Birthday. 15 this month. I believe that he has finally settled on a bass guitar as his chosen gift. I had almost bought the video camera he had previously wanted, when he changed his mind. Typical. I guess a guitar means music lessons. Its funny how gifts have ongoing costs.
Perhaps since it is now tomorrow instead of today I should go to sleep. Before I go here is a little of my 'art'.

new template

2009-07-07T16:45:00.001-07:00

It is a bit of a surprise to find myself blogging two days in a row, but here I am again. Last night after I logged off I decided to make another freebie template and now that it's made I thought I should post it. Although I have to admit that at the moment anything that relates to the internet is a bit of a struggle. We are having Issues. We aren't even sure what is causing the issues, I don't think it is our ISP which means it is our modem (probably). I don't really understand why a perfectly good modem suddenly starts not working properly but it appears that is what has happened. Last night I spent about an hour trying to open the 4shared site. No go. Today it opened fine. Downloads are a bit of a joke, with occasional items downloading reasonably ok, but mostly they either don't download or when I get them they won't open. I have stopped trying, as I am sick of getting frustrated by it. Now the big question is do we need a new modem, and does that mean we need new cards in our laptops as someone suggested. Essentially like most computer repairs it is all sounding expensive! Hopefully we can get it sorted this week because it has been more than a week so far of patchy internet and as i am obviously addicted to the internet, I do really need to get a decent Fix.
Theoretically with all these internet issues you would think that I would have been doing lots of scrapbooking, but somehow that is not the case. I am still not all that productive, and keep reworking the same photos/pages over and over trying to get it right!
I have made some cool pages though, here are a couple I did for HeatherT at Pixelcanvas.

This one uses her painted corners and dividers. I love the freehand look, and they are easily recoloured to fit in with your layout.

This little mini kit is so cute, it's called Growing up 2 fast. I think the whole growing up subject is on my mind a bit with all the kids having birthdays at this time of the year. Ben, my baby is turning 15 this month! And Lucus the grandbaby turned 3 last month! While you are visiting pixelcanvas you really should check out Heather's tutorials. They are amazing, detailed instructions on a variety of really useful subjects, including extractions, shadows and masks.

I have also done some new pages for Sara of Sweet Blossom designs.

This one is made with her Funky Baby kit which is full of bright funky colours, suitable for both girls and boys. And below is the page I made with Sara's All fired up. Both kits are available at www.scrapthatidea.com.

One of the comments I got about this layout was that it would make a great template, so... here it is.

Here is the link for the new template

As always I would love to see your layouts! Come back and post them in the guest book or in the comments section.

not a great blogger

2009-07-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

I have decided that i am not the worlds best blogger... not even close. The problem is that i forget to do it, and that kind of defeats the purpose. Of course like most people I consider my life to be fairly mundane and not really 'blogworthy'. I keep resolving to do better but so far I am not going to be winning any prizes. Although I did in fact win an award a few months ago - something about being a polite blogger and leaving nice comments. I did feel very good about that as it is something I am passionate about. I know that for me personally, I love to hear from people who have visited my blog, just a hi, or thanks for your whatever is quite buzzy, when you are a novice blogger and aren't sure if you are getting it right.
But this was not a rant about the importance of leaving comments, because I haven't done much that has been comment worthy lately. In fact right this very second I am having a little afternoon nap having returned from a couple of days at the snow with the kids. Of course my kids are teenagers so I thought it would be a good bet that the boys at least would love playing in the snow and we were right. Ben loved it! Ben spent two entire days snowboarding and didnt even stop for lunch. He is now trying to work out how he could make enough money to take up snowboarding as a holiday. I think he will need a good job, because the whole snow sport thing is so expensive here. I think we could have flown to New Zealand for a week's skiing/snowboarding for less or certainly not much more. But the kids hadnt been to the snow since... well when they were toddlers i think. So we went. It was exhausting. It was cold. It was expensive. But it was fun. Greg is not a natural snowboarder. He turned up back at the lodge midway through the 1st morning for a break, he had numerous bruises and injuries from impacts with trees and snow, and I think also damaged himself falling off the ski lift. So it is only Ben that is our snow sport enthusiast. Greg much preferred playing pool in the bar afterwards. Each to their own i guess.
My scrapbooking has been limping along. I still don't feel like I am really achieving as well as I want to, I am still struggling a bit. But things are getting better. Our internet is an ongoing problem, so we might have to get the computer tech out tomorrow as we have very limited success with downloads and looking at any web sites with pictures (that pretty much covers all scrapbooking doesn't it?). Hopefully Craig can get it working properly, although I suspect that it is going to cost... doesn't it always? Now I am determined to get another template organised, I feel like i have been slack lately, so stay posted.. hopefully this week.

I like Sundays

2009-06-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

I like Sundays now that the children are all teenagers and believe that sleeping in on the weekends is their sacred right. I completely agree, because I think a weekend sleep in is one of the great joys of life. This morning we all slept in until 10.30 which was a bit frustrating as I was planning on being 'at' the speed scrap for pixel canvas at 10.00. So I turned up late, but I caught up and managed to make a pretty cute layout.

I used a kit called Beep Beep by Karen Lewis which I had bought ages ago. I am trying to use up some of my supplies that I have impulse bought and never used. Unfortunately there is a lot of them. I have even been trying hard to clean up and even delete stuff off my EHD so that it is more user friendly. My scrapbooking now is up to 145G. That does include the layouts. But it seems rather... large! And there is a lot of stuff there that I have picked up when I was a devoted freebie hunter. I still love freebies but now I tend to consider carefully whether I really want things because otherwise they just take up space.
I had a big run of shopping this last week, so I have a duty to myself to use all that stuff. Pixel Canvas had a sale so I had to buy some stuff there, it was 40% off! Then i bought a few things by Ninascraps over at Oscraps, love her templates, very simple and graphic. Perfect for someone who is in a creative slump.

Template by Nina scraps Supplies from Jen Wilson Designs Buttons by Bed in a bag special

This layout uses a template by Timounette. another nice simple graphic design (and a freebie on her blog)

Kit Baby Boy Lauries scraps

Those two layouts were enough to remind me that I really can make ok layouts! So goodbye creative slump. And then the big excitement for my week was being invited to join Heather T's Creative Team. I am still a bit blown away by that. I didn't really think that I was up to her standard.. but she likes my style... i was seriously thrilled with that comment. Particularly as i had just spend the last week wondering what on earth my style was. Just for the record I am still not convinced I could define my style, other than "i'll have a go at anything'". Is that a style?
I have of course been hard at work reading, I got stuck into Jim Butcher and have been reading his fantastic fantasy series for a few weeks now. I am waiting for book 5 now. And I see on his website that there is a book 6 to come out in December. That would make a nice Christmas present.

Caitlin is going for her learners this coming week. I keep reminding her that she needs to study for it but she seems to be confident that she knows it. I certainly hope so, because this is the 2nd time she has booked for it. The first time she took herself there and got lost and missed the appointment. We decided that it would be best if we drove her to the appointment this time as there is less chance of her getting lost! Of course once she gets her L plates she will be after me to take her for driving lessons. It is a very scary thought. it is a few years since i took the twins but i do remember it as a very 'interesting' experience. keep in mind that I am not a very good teacher! I guess i managed to learn to drive from my parents and they were very challenging to learn from. there was a lot of yelling. And of course i was sure that I knew everything too. I can still remember driving my parents to Dunedin and dad saying, 'what did that signpost say?' Of course i hadn't even seen the darned signpost. But seriously it said steep grade trucks use low gear. should i really have been interested? Of course he made me use low gear too and everyone passed us. Very embarrassing.

I dont like Mondays

2009-06-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

I don't like Mondays except when I worked the weekend and have Monday off, like today. And today i revelled in being off. I tried to do as little as possible, finishing my book, and working on some scrapbooking for a lot of the day. But eventually I did have to do some stuff even if the most exertion I managed for the day was cooking the dinner! I did make corned beef which is one of my family's favorite ever meals. It has to be just right... first I cook the corned meat in a bottle of ginger ale, which gives it a nice flavour. We like it served with mashed potatoes and carrots, another vege or two is ok so long as they aren't silver beet which because we get out of the garden for nothing my children don't like. They appear to prefer veges bought from the shop. Tonight it was broccoli and asparagus. Then it has to be served with mustard sauce. Lots of mustard sauce. I dont think that mustard sauce is on the weight watchers plan but I ate it anyway. It was all delicious.... thank goodness for the Edmonds cook book and Mustard sauce.
I know.. it isnt riveting, but it is the stuff my life is made up of. We have had no thrilling adventures. Right now the most exciting thing in my evening has been the search for Baking soda so Greg can make a Banana cake to try out the recipe for school cooking tomorrow. As a matter of fact we had none so he has gone to the shop to buy some. Shows how often I bake. But I do love home baking. The smell of fresh cookies makes me go quite weak. Which is why there are none here - definitely not on the weight watchers program.
To be honest I am probably not the best advert for weight watchers really. I don't tend to get to the meetings, but i have been twice. I have not managed to track what I eat for more than one day - that was the first day of course. But joining (i used the special offer join for $1.00) did remind me that I didn't like my middle aged spread much and I have lost a little bit of weight. Do you know what that means? It means that now none of my clothes fit properly. Now they are all long and baggy. I will probably have to go and buy new stuff!!!
So - I know you are probably saying, what is with all this burble... where is the scrapbook stuff? I have to admit that my mojo is a bit damaged at present. I start pages but I have a dickens of a job finishing them. I move stuff, move it some more, then delete it. I bought a couple of kits to see if that would trigger anything, but... no. It isnt lack of supplies. It can't be lack of photos... I have gigabytes of the things. It is just me. Sigh. so I have been out and looked at lots of galleries, and there are lots of inspired people out there. I did think of making a quilt, or a jumper... but then I thought, what about all my UFOs... (unfinished objects). So no new stuff. It is a good time to tidy up my hard drives and back everything up and those kind of chores that I put off. I have done a bit of reading. I read a trilogy by Jim Butcher, well I thought it was a trilogy till i found back four and five. These are the Codex Alera series and they are a good readable bunch of fantasy, great characters and the plot keeps you engrossed throughout, so they get my tick of approval. Scrapbooking? I have done some. Sara has put out a new kit called Space. A nice boy kit with great blue orange colours. I decided to pull out some of my old photos of Ben and use them. I was quite pleased with this.

As always you can find her kits at Scrapthatidea.com and she generally has them on special for the first couple of days. This one has a great stapled alpha which I love. That messy stitching is pretty cool too.
Well that is pretty much the update on our thrilling lives. No freebies today either... maybe I should write that at the top?

Pink alpha

2009-06-03T17:51:00.000-07:00

Download here

I finally decided today that I should post the pink alpha that I made, like weeks ago, and then forgot about. Hopeless huh? So today you get, finally the last alpha for the Classic Baby kit. I do hope you liked my first ever kit. I learned a lot making it! I have been doing lots of scrapping lately, trying out different styles and trying to expand my creativity. It is amazing how many tutorials that are out there when you go looking. Youtube is a really good source for all sorts of CS tutorials. I daresay they have Photoshop elements stuff as well. I watched a half hour tutorial on how to extract wispy hair that just blew me away. It made me realise how basic my extractions are! But at the same time I came across a number of good sites with beautiful actions which are one of my favorite toys. I went looking for the Pioneer Woman's actions, having heard of them, and it turned out that she is the same Pioneer woman that cooks... i tried some of her recipes last year.
Anyway the upshot of it was that her actions are found here. And they have some free downloads which are really worth trying. There is a couple of lovely black and white actions that I was really pleased with. I used one of them to make this page.

This uses one of Vinnie Pearce's artistic overlays, which I also love, and her word art as well... The funny thing was that this photo was taken at the playground and the white bar he is holding is actually a kind of vivid orange which completely discoloured his face. I thought the photo was a throwaway, and was just playing with the action... and it just worked. Funny how that happens sometimes.
So I haven't blogged for a while. It just hasnt been that interesting! Lots of working and sleeping really. I have been following the So you think you can design contest on digiscrapaddicts.com and we are on the final round now. The kits are all still there if you are looking for some great freebies. There was so much amazing talent there.
Sara of Sweet Blossom Design has been going from strength to strength with a new amazing kit each week, and I have been such a slack bunny because I haven't mentioned them in a while. Her new kit this week is called Magic Happens and it is seriously gorgeous with lots of bling.

available at scrapthatidea.com
And the new June collab kit is also out, this is a very cool kit with a beach theme. Here are the layouts I made with it

Once again availabe at scrapthatidea.com
So that is the update. Hope you like the alpha. That is the end of Classic Baby. I think it is probably time for another couple of templates and then... maybe I will get my next kit out.

time goes by so quickly

2009-05-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

and i realise that I havent blogged for ages. But you know sometimes it feels like there is nothing really noteworthy occurring in my life. I have been to work, helped my husband a bit with his assignment which involves the finer details of left bundle branch blocks - not sure what that is? Trust me you dont want one. It is a cardiac thing, he is doing a postgrad certificate in critical care this year amid much swearing and muttering. I am chief grammar and spelling and wording assistant. I am learning a lot about left bundle branch blocks myself.
I think that I must have SAD, seasonal affective disorder. I think it means you get down in the winter. Because I have to admit that now it is cold and frosty that I just find it hard to get up in the morning. I keep missing Queensland and wondering why we left. We have long conversations about why we left, to reassure ourselves that we did have reasons. But both of us so hate the winter that at this time of the year the reasons just dont sound good enough.
So there I am a bit down in the dumps, not liking the weather, not liking my job much, my kids are fighting lots.... dreary isn't it?
I know it will pass, and part of it has been the ongoing issue of my back pain, which really does bother me. I am often so intensely angry. I am angry with the person that created the situation where it happened. I am angry that when I have time off because I can't work, they pay me a pittance. I am angry because the pain specialist told me that my best solution was a non clinical job. I have worked for years to become a midwife, I love birthing!!! I am angry because.... it just doesnt seem fair!
So. What i should have written as a heading, is dont read my blog today because it is a big grumble.
How about instead I show you something fun?

This is Benjamin almost 6 years ago! He was such a hard shot. Always goofing off... actually not much has changed. I made this page for Digital Paper Hearts using a kit called my li'l monster by Phantom scraps. You might recognise the template? Yep decided to reuse it because it just worked so well. But I wondered if you might be interested in a little tutorial on how to make the coloured edges?
I kind of discovered this by accident, and thought, wow that is one cool and easy technique!
First of all open the paper you want to use for the edge. On CS i then right click on the paper and go layer from background. You now have a transparent background behind the paper. Now draw a big square on the paper about 1cm or so inside the edge. Dont worry too hard the first time because you can play around with this till you get what you like.
Ok next go into select>modify>feather. Pick a number from 5o to 100 px. I usually do about 50. Now your outline is curved. Hit delete. Hit it again.. as often as you like till you have the feathered edge you want. The more you delete the finer the edge becomes. Then just drop it onto your layout. It is almost like a chalked edge. And so easy huh?
I do have another technique i use to make a chalked edge but that requires making a path, perhaps i will go through that another day. Hope you like this tutorial.. love to see any results???
and i promise that i wont grumble next time.

new template!

2009-05-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

I was sitting here tonight and thought... why don't i make another template. And so I did. How easy is that? It's one of those classic templates which always look good, and with a bit of imagination you can make it look really good. Here we are enjoying a rainy weekend. I say enjoying, because we really do need rain. But since my plan was to catch up washing this weekend, it kind of doesn't really work. I guess that is why I have time to make templates.
I have been having a great time downloading some fantastic kits from the DSA So you think you can design competition. Today their newsletter came out. It is worth a look, as there are lots of discount coupons for some great scrapbook shops. I had a great shopping spree after the last one. Anyway I am in the middle of watching Billy Conolly travelling to The Ends of the Earth. It is a great series, so i will post my template and go.

I made this layout a while ago for a challenge at Elemental Scraps using
Elemental Scraps Zazzle Collaboration Kit.
Miss Vivi Starting School background paper.
Fonts Pea Susan, Palantino Linotype

Download template here
As always I would love to see what you have made, I am getting a few beautiful layouts in my guest book at the bottom of the page. Maybe next year I will be brave enough to try for the SYTYCD challenge!

Classic Baby Alpha

2009-05-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Today I did it. I sat down and made the first alpha for the Classic baby kit. You note that I say first. Well with so many colours in the kit it was hard to decide what to do with the alpha. Make something non gender specific? But I just wanted to give the flag alpha a go, and i had the flags all made... so that is what you've got. A flag alpha. Blue and only upper case at this stage. But I have supplied a blank flag if you have a yen to put your own letters on.

You can download it here. Now its late at night here, or to be more accurate early morning so I am off to sleep.. enjoy.

sorry about the absence

2009-05-13T03:40:00.000-07:00

Well it is a couple of days since I blogged. In fact quite a few days. I think that I was so relieved to have finished my kit and finally uploaded all the parts that I kind of breathed a sigh of relief and sat down to vegetate a bit. So no, I haven't made the alphas. I have had one suggestion of a flag alpha like the baby banners i made. What do you think of that idea? It is quite appealing. Other concepts that are making my shortlist are a baby block alpha or a stitched down alpha. All of the ideas are good. Just need to get on to it.. if you have any ideas let me know. Today was a monumentous day! I got an email with a link to a layout made with my Classic Baby kit!!! wahoo that is the first one! And a beautiful comment today about one of my templates. What a buzz that was.
I have finished my night shifts so am enjoying a few days off. However I had better get myself organised and go and do some agency shifts or the money flow could be grim. I hate that! But I figure that I had lots of years as a stay at home mother and now I just gotta go and work. I really notice the change now I am a working mother. I used to have time for much more time consuming meals and could spend all day getting things ready. Now I am constantly looking for easy meal ideas. Our shopping has changed too, with more instant food and prepackaged stuff. I am a bit sad about that as I really do try to avoid lots of packaging and much prefer fresh food. But trying to juggle work and home and fit in scrapbooking requires a few sacrifices.
My reading is going along slowly, still on Petrodor, and they were right when they said it wasnt as good as Sasha, but there you go, I had to try it.
So, I guess you are wondering when there will be some more goodies to try out. But if you are after high quality freebies then I would be hanging out at www.digiscrapaddicts.com where they are having a cool contest called So you think you can design. All the kits are free to download and there are so many great kits! Definitely worth checking out.
I am currently having a wee Vinnie Pearce crush. I really like her stuff, it is just different. Different and interesting. On Mothers Day I had a wee spending spree (I figured it was too hard to get Mike to go shopping for digital kits and so I did it myself. He bought me perfume though - Arpege, which I love, and the children bought me new essential oils as I use them so much. I love citrus smells. Mandarin is my favorite, along with, sweet orange and grapefruit. The house always smells so fresh! Caitlin bought me the collectors edition of The Notebook, knowing how much i had enjoyed the movie.
We had a beautiful day with Lucus this week, although he has got a nasty cold. We had fun and just hung round home really and played. Of course I took one or two photos as well!
So.. I plan to get to work on a few more templates. It is fascinating how popular they are. I think i have 10 times as many downloads for the templates as for my kit.
You'll just have to keep checking back because I have no idea when I will get the next template done.

Finally

2009-05-09T01:07:00.000-07:00

Yes here it is the final part of Classic Baby. I have to admit that the alphas are not yet done. But when I do night shift I am fairly non functional so it is not too surprising. The alphas will be along in a day or two. If anyone has any ideas about how they should look, feel free to share your ideas in the comments section. I do hope with the whole kit now finished, that I am going to see some finished pages in my guest book? I am really excited to see what you do with it.
So, you know that I have been working nights = that about sums up all I have been doing. Last night I was present at a beautiful waterbirth. So wonderful! I have finally finished my book Sasha by Joel Shepherd and am reading the squel called Petrodor. Have heard that it isn't quite as good, but we shall see. So far I have read like 5 pages before i fell asleep! Sasha was an excellent read if you like fantasy type fiction. No gnomes or dwarves or elves in this one, just an imaginary kingdom.
So now to the business you are waiting for.......

Here it is the last part of the elements. I do hope you like them, I did try to make a good variety and make plenty of boy things as well as girl things. Now i understand why people tend to make boy kits or girl kits. Every now and then I would look and realise that I had more pink than blue, and then I realised that I had virtually nothing in the neutral beige tones! Keep in mind that this is my first effort! I was particularly proud of the fuzzy blanket texture which I made myself, by scanning a baby blanket! It just goes to show how creative we can be with very little effort.
Enjoy!

Thursday

2009-05-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well it's 8am for me, and i have just got into bed after my night shift! But before I go to sleep I really wanted to give you the first part of the elements. There are only two element packs, so I had better get the alphas done asap or you will be waiting and wondering where they are. No chit chat today coz sleep is really looking good.

Download elements part 1 here

The rest

2009-05-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

The rest of what you are asking? Well today is the final installment of Classic Baby papers, but there is more. It is also the grand unveiling of the elements. After many days of hard work, and lots of fun I have finally finished the elements for the kit. There is nearly 70 of them because I was enjoying myself. I have to admit that the alpha is not yet done... it is my next project... i am thinking maybe two alphas since it came out such a big kit. Maybe i will make a grunge version next. I have to admit that i usually do grunge, and this is a bit of a departure for me. Usually i like to dirty it up a bit. Anyway I have to show you the elements, because hopefully you are as excited as me.
Now not all the elements are shown because there just wasn't space. But I tried to give you an idea of what is in there. I will zip them up and upload them over the next couple of days. As usual I have probably saved them too big and that may be a bit of a pain, but i hope you will be patient as it is my first ever effort.... they are cute aren't they?
And of course the final installment of the papers......

Today is a mix of browns and greens and whatever hadnt gone before, I hope I got them all. I think there is a couple more than the preview as I got a bit carried away.
Winter seems to have hit Melbourne and it has been cold and windy and often wet. Today the sun shone for a while, but it wasn't warm. I got up early to go to work and it was definitely chilly then. I start back on night shifts tomorrow so will have to excuse me if i only pop in to post my files. I have just finished reading another JD Robb book, I know, i read a lot of them, but they are seriously readable then moved on to Luanne Rice, apparently she is a new york times bestselling author. I am not too sure what that means, but this is the second one of hers i have read, this one was called the Edge of Winter. It was good, a mellow kind of story. Her other one I read was called Dream Country, it was a real tear jerker, this one was softer with an interesting story, but not hard work if you know what i mean. I have just started a fantasy type book by Joel Stepherd called Sasha. It looks quite ok, but have only read a few pages. You can tell what I do when i am not scrapbooking!
So that is me for today, look out for the first part of the elements over the next day or two, and feel free to send me (or put in my guest book better yet) any layouts you make. this is my first ever kit that i have released... My outback kit that i had planned to start with has a few bits and pieces that need tidying. I got a bit ambitious with extractions and am still trying to get them perfect. Do you ever wonder why you started?

next installment

2009-05-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

Well it was a busy weekend. I did a bit of shopping .. i mean it was NSD so i felt i should. Then today i did real shopping when i took the boys to the market. Then we finished up at the mall buying the last of Caitlins birthday presents. It is her birthday tomorrow so we are now prepared. Got home dog tired and of course work rang and asked me to work a night. So that is where I am going this evening! In a few minutes i will have a nap and try and get a few zzzs before work. But i thought that i must log in and post the next installment of the Classic baby kit. I am hoping that you are liking it. The elements are coming out pretty cool....... I am nearly done, I think there is 47 elements so far, but I keep getting new ideas and having a play with it, and then making something new. I am having lots of fun, learning about how to do it all! So that is all the chat today, just a matter of giving you the link and logging off i am afraid. Classic Baby Lemon and White

Thursday

2009-04-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a quiet day, where I chilled out and did some scrapbooking and precious little else. That is a truly shocking admission, but very true! On top of that I served the boys vegetarian spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, so they are barely speaking to me. I actually really enjoyed it, but there you go, maybe i am more open minded! Greg informs me that he needs meat.. really needs it. Caitlin ate at work, perhaps that was deliberate!
Nothing new to show you today, no excitement to report. Just a cold day with an exceptionally heavy frost this morning. Great chilling out weather. However I stopped by my blog to offer you the link to my kit. Yesterday it was the pinks... today its the blues.
Now i discovered today that i have been saving my papers too large which is why yesterdays download was very large. Todays is much smaller. So Here for you are the baby blues.

Another freebie

2009-04-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how productive I have been lately. Lots of layouts, my outback kit almost finished and ready to roll and then today i sat down and started playing with some new papers, before I knew it i was making the elements to go with them! The elements aren't complete yet, but the papers are, so I thought I could start putting up the papers for you to download while I finished them off.
Now this kit is inspired by old fashioned baby stuff, as in dating back to when i was a baby. A mix of soft colours with lots of ginghams. I adore gingham and if i knew how to make a seersucker texture I would do that. I had lots of cute little dresses that looked like this and in fact so did my daughters! So here it is.. Classic Baby 25 papers. (with elements to come!)

I had so much fun making these! And i am having a great time with the elements! So today I can offer you the first installment. I will pop the rest of them up over the next few days. (please be patient i am not too good at blogging daily though). I would love some feedback. This is my first ever design that i have shared. So tell me what you think!!! Here is the link I have just realised that I forgot to include TOU with the file. But you know the deal right? Don't sell it, dont share it, and don't do anything bad with it. The TOUs will be in with the next installment.
And of course with National Scrapbooking Day coming up next month we are all probably getting our visa cards polished and our paypal accounts preloaded for the sales!!! There is always so much going on, with bargains galore and competitions and chats and challenges! This will be the first NSD for Scrapthatidea, but they are right into it too so here is the coupon for the NSD specials.
I know.. you kind of want to get over there now and start putting stuff in your cart ready for the sale.... in fact... why don't you? With 50% off you can't lose.
So what is happening in my life other than spending large amounts glued to my computer being creative?.. actually speaking of which I must show you this layout I made. The theme was The Artist in Me and I was asked to do it for my new Creative Team which I have just joined over at Digital Paper Hearts. Another cute little store with lots in it, if you are anything like me you will have a wonderful time shopping there. (Am i a bad influence?)

This layout was made with one of Flergs newest kits Blaze. I had to buy it coz it had so much gorgeous Red and I Love Red!!! Besides which her kits are always so cool and i love her styles and glitters and... did you get the grab bag? It was truly excellent! Moving on...
This is my first CT layout for DPH using a kit by Heather Hill called for the love of ladybugs.

What do you think? I thought it was pretty cute. That little girl is 26 now!
I have been trying to fit some reading in too, in case you hadn't noticed I do like to read. I have been having a bit of a run of JD Robb lately which is actually Norah Roberts writing under a different name. The JD Robb books are all murder mysteries and are a great read. She creates great characters who are interesting and quirky. I have to admit that the yesterday I did in fact read a Johanna Lindsay book. Have you read any of her's? I guess they are called Romance. Most of them are historical but the one i read yesterday called Warrior's Woman was sci fi romance if you can get your head round that one. They are great no brainers and sometimes I really enjoy a relaxing story that has no complexities whatsoever!
I am having a pretty lazy week with not much on the work front, it is not really like me at all. However I guess at some point my agency will ring and I will be putting on my uniform and heading out to work.
So hopefully I will be back in the next day or so with installment number two of Classic Baby! enjoy.

Rain in Melbourne

2009-04-26T14:01:00.001-07:00

Well I mean serious pelting down, wake you up in the night rain. It is wonderful to be finally having some rain, when our dams are at such a low level. But from what I understand we would need weeks if not months of rain to actually break the drought, so I am not holding my breath on that. Still the garden (what survived the summer) will be happy and our water tank will be filled so it is all good. If we could finally get our grey water recycling system installed it would be perfect.
The great thing about rainy weather is it does decrease your desire to go out. So I have been very industrious at home doing some scrapbooking, some scrapbook shopping and trying to tidy up and back up my hard drive. I even did some housework.
So shall I start with the freebie? I decided this morning that it was about time I made something new. So I whipped up this template. I used a really early layout of mine which i still think is kind of cool. Perhaps I wouldnt go for quite such bright colours now.
Here is the link for it. Hope you like it. And as always would love to see what you make. I have a guestbook at the bottom of the page now so you can load your layouts up there. (mike was playing the other day and thought it would be a fun thing to have). As you can see there is still that coupon there for 20% off at scrapthat idea. So it would be worth your while to pop over there and see what you can pick up. Since all their products are dirt cheap it shouldnt be hard to find lots of stuff to buy!
Sara has a new kit in store too called Industrial. It is a great grungy kit with some really interesting elements and if you head over to Sara's blog you can pick up the freebie cluster frame. Not only that the kit is only $3 for the next 48 hrs!!!
Here is what I have made with it so far:So that pretty much covers what I have been up to.. lots of working and a little bit of scrapping. I have to go shopping this week to buy birthday presents for the teenage daughter. But at least she gave me a very clear list. Then later this week i have a run of the dreaded night shifts which always leave me grumpy and out of sorts. Now it is important to remember that the coupon code runs out at the end of April so you only have a few days to go and pick up your bargains!

new week!

2009-04-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

The weeks seem to be flying by at the moment! May is just around the corner and with it my daugher's 19th birthday! I received the birthday list last week via email in power point format! You gotta love that! We have had a little discussion about the first item, as i felt that a 16g iphone was a little out of my reach! And the ongoing costs were out of her's! So we have found a better priced phone, and I have a list of Twilight stuff, books, merchandise and a bunch of other books. Such a typical Caitlin list. Mobile phone and books.. usually she asks for dvds too. But I guess as she had already preordered (and paid) for Twilight that she felt she had that covered.
The school holidays are over. My poor children must have had the worst care ever over these holidays. We went to NZ for a week leaving them with our son in law, then worked hard out for the second week. Being slightly vague about dates I was sure there was another week and had planned to do some fun stuff this week, but last night over dinner one of the children mentioned school tomorrow....oops. They did try to cover up their slip and pretend that they meant next week but it was too late and that's where they are now.
Now I really need to do some work on a new template for you, although I have been working hard, first on some pages for Sara's new kit and then on my own kit. I know i keep saying there is one but being my first ever effort I am not sure if I will know when it is finished. It is getting rather large now, I think i have 27 papers, but I have to admit that I am struggling a bit with elements. I think it is time to make an alpha or two and get it ready for release really, so maybe I will aim for the beginning of May. Have to finish some time. And I do want to make another template, the last two have been so popular.
Big news today is Sara's new kit. Dreamland.
Is it not totally gorgeous??? Now it is only $4.00 at scrapthatidea and don't forget to use my coupon code to get 20% off till the end of the month. Here is the code again STI-LINZ-5829. You can just copy and paste it and voila... a bargain. Now I have to show you what I made with it. I had a lot of fun because it just appealed to me on so many levels. First of all I liked that soft dreamy baby boy look...

I was really pleased with this layout, just loved the way the black and white photos worked so well. Then I thought, what else could I do with this layout. And being a huge fan of Joanne Bain and Natali designs I thought about their lovely overlays and decided to have a go at making something along those lines. Well, this was the result.
It's a bit different from my usual stuff but I liked my overlay effort. Then I thought, well what else could I do with this gorgeous kit? And this was the result
So that's why I think this is a top value kit! It is so versatile. You can do all sorts of stuff. Sara has some of the Ct layouts on her blog today, and I am sure she will be posting more tomorrow.
While you are over at scrapthatidea checking out Sara's new kit you should have a look around at some of the other stuff. Vicki, Mel and Stacey have an amazing selection there too, and there are some real bargains.
Ok.. enough blogging, time i looked at template production, got to keep the fans happy!!!!

Saturday

2009-04-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

Well, if you came to see if I have a freebie then stop now. Nothing to give away today. I have been working hard doing some new pages for Sara who has new kits in the pipeline. Then i have been very busy downloading my long awaited Twilight kit from Flergs. It is so cool. It certainly goes so well with the books. It is certainly worth heading over to her store to check it out!
And today a big thing happened. I got fan mail!!!!!!!!! check out this layout made with my template. It is so exciting..
This layout is by Christine Wong using a kit called Stolen Moments. I am just stoked to think that someone loved my template!!
On the personal side......there is nothing to report. Work continues, night shifts day shifts. You know... work and more work.

my second template.

2009-04-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? I was so excited by the response to my last template that I whipped up another one. Well actually I just reworked an existing layout. I hope it is easy to use. I can tell you that the original layout took me hours and hours. But it is all numbered so hopefully it makes sense now. So.. here is the preview
Here is the link. I have put the file up in rar. format this time as it is way smaller. And this is a seriously big template. If you have never used rar formats before then i suggest you download something simple like winRAR which is so easy to use and will do zip and rar files. Hope you like this one... once again, lots of opportunities to use lots and lots of photos.
Now the next item of important business is Sara's sooooo cute new kit. Freebie kit better yet. You have probably all stopped by her blog already and picked up the first installment of Bee Happy. But here is a little glimpse if you don't have it yet.
It is just so darned cute! The little cute teddy bears, and the little bee hives! Here is my layout featuring as always Lucus.

little note

2009-04-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

I just had a look at my 4 shared account and realised that 711 people had downloaded my template. i am just blown away. 711 people called by my blog in the last couple of days! wow! Isnt that amazing? Lots of them left me some love too and it was so amazing. .... not only amazing but encouraging. So i have just sat up here till nearly midnight doing most of the work on my second template. Once again it will be a multi photo job. So stay posted coz it should be out and about in the next day or so.

Easter Monday

2009-04-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

I have had so many people download my template. And so many positive comments! It really is exciting. Spurred me on to do some more work on the kit that i have been creating... its only been underway for a couple of months, so it could be a bit longer in the production stage. this is only my first ever kit so it is taking me a while to work out how to do stuff. But today, before I head off to work, i wanted to stop in and share this coupon with you.
I keep telling people about scrapthatidea mostly because I think they have such great value kits. I mean we are all on a budget really and scrapbooking can be a really expensive hobby. Lot of us are out there cruising the freebie stuff, and I love the free downloads more than anyone. But the next best thing is a bargain! And scrapthatidea is full of them. It has only been around about a month so you might not have been there yet. But there it is www.scrapthatidea.com. It is full of good value, gorgeous kits. They even have a one dollar bin. Sara, who I CT for sells there, and her designs are definitely awesome. Tomorrow I will post you some pics to show what is available.. but why don't you go look for yourselves?

check this out!

2009-04-11T06:43:00.000-07:00

Click here to download
I am so excited. Well for two reasons really. The first is that I have just finished hiding the eggs for the kids easter egg hunt. I mean the kids are 18, 17, and 14, but it is still fun! I made up really bad poetry and hid them in silly places. Cant wait to see them trying to figure it out tomorrow.

Of course the other big thing is the unveiling of my much promised template. So here it is. My very first template. Hopefully not my last.

Now please let me know if it doesnt work coz i am kind of excited about this and I would hate to be posting unusable templates! And if you make something with it, then send me the link. I would love to see it. Now it is almost tomorrow here so i think it is time for some sleeping.

Back from NZ

2009-04-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well we had an amazing holiday in New Zealand. The weather was picture postcard perfect. We barely needed a jumper. It was so great to catch up with friends and family and I know we could have stayed Much longer. But we could only find time for a whistle stop tour so that was what it had to be. After Australia, New Zealand is amazingly green. And it felt so much like home, which of course it is! I took lots of photos, and still havent downloaded them all. But what I have seen so far looks pretty good.
Of course we came back from holiday and straight back into work. Mike had Uni and I had work the following day, so there really has been no let up. However I decided today that I was finally going to make my April desktop as I am pretty behind on that one. I have made a freebie to download as well. Here is our version featuring Mike's daughter Sarah at her graduation.
Naturally I have included a png file for you to download so you can make your own version. I used an older kit of Sarah's for this desktop, because it seemed to go so well with the more formal layout. And the really good news is that it is still available Free on her blog. So it might be worth checking out!
Here is the link to download the desktops. Have fun with them. Love to hear back if you like them! And as i said before head on over to Sara's blog because at the moment this kit is still in the freebies section and it might not be there much longer.
Now I told you last week that I was making a template as a freebie. Being me it is one that uses lots of photos so i am just tidying up the numbering etc before putting it up on the blog. But.. here is the big news. The collab kit Bollywood was released while i was away so you can see my layout... and maybe decide if you want to come back for the template.
The bollywood kit is another sizzling bright combination with a totally cool bollywood theme (yeah i know the name says that) so it is worth checking out over at scrapthatidea.com. Here is a little look.. and of course if you have a look round the designers blogs I know there are a few freebies that are worth picking up!
Pretty fun looking huh? And like everything at scrapthatidea it is good value for money! enjoy!

Look two days in a row!

2009-03-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

I thought I would write again today because Sara has released a fantastic new kit... I told you she was prolific didnt i? Now this new kit is called Under the Sea. And it is got some really fun elements and beautiful papers. Of course i had some cute beach photos of Lucus just waiting to be scrapped! here is the kit: Click here to go to the shop and buy it, only $4.00
And here is what I did with it:
Isn't he gorgeous? And the kits is too!
Then I made this one, just coz I thought it was funny.
This photo is taken at Townsville looking out to Magnetic Island.
The other girls in the CT also did some amazing pages too, so have a look in the gallery at Scrapthatidea.
I have heard a whisper that there might be a very bold, bright, funky collab kit coming out way soon....so keep an eye out, because it looks pretty darned goood. I am working on my layouts now... and packing and getting organised.

Where have I been?

2009-03-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

I started off blogging really regularly but like many things it now is something that I keep having to squeeze in when I remember... and I am not remembering as often as I would like. Certainly life has been shockingly busy and I haven't been getting much besides working and sleeping done. However I do finally have a couple of days off before we go to NZ so I thought I should make an effort and do some blogging.
I can't tell you anything much has been happening in the family. Greg of course turned 17 on 27 March so that was important, but aside from that life has been fairly routine. Mike's course at Uni is quite challenging so that is adding a lot of stress! It is quite putting me off studying ever again.
I have done a reasonable amount of scrapbooking, as Sara has been quite prolific and been creating some great new kits. The latest one is called In the Jungle and has a great colour scheme. Here is a preview
And here is what I did with it.

These pictures were taken on our first Christmas day in townsville. We went for a beautiful walk down by the river and being such keen photographers we got the kids to climb up this huge tree that hung over by the river. You can see by Caitlin's face that she didnt think it was that much fun! Then I scrapped another Townsville photo. this one of Libby.

It is a really gorgeous kit... i do love the colours and as always really reasonably priced. Check out Scrapthatidea to pick it up.
In addition there is another kit due out any day now..... and I do think it is time I knocked up a qp so stay posted. Not only that.. but wait there's more. Yesterday i created my first template. I have never made one before but I was trying to work out how to lift a layout that I had admired. Now it isnt entirely finished, I am still putting the words on the top, but I think it should be ready to give away in the next couple of days too.
So now back to what I should be doing, getting myself organised for my trip. I know we are only going for a short time but it still requires organisation. I am trying to get the washing up to date and make sure meals are organised. We just have to book a rental car and then we should be all set.
see you later

Looooooong week

2009-03-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Suddenly it is Wednesday. If you are wondering where I have been all week, it is really very simple. at work. Nights... again! i dont seem to have seen daylight for some time, but finally the run of nights is over and I am back in the real world! One day off today and then back to my other job tomorrow. But next week we are off on our trip to NZ, so I am calling that a holiday! Even though it looks like it will be a really busy trip, I am really looking forward to seeing everyone. I guess I am also looking forward to just being in New Zealand, it is still home!
This is going to be a quick note. I am pretty tired, just wanted to reassure you that I am still alive. I do hope to get back online in the next day or two so I can show you the pictures of Sara's new kit, and the cute pages I have made with it already. I am thinking there must be a qp coming up soon too, so keep your eye out. Just got to find a few spare moments in my day!

Days off

2009-03-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

Wow This is my 3rd day off, in a row. It is so great. I have been incredibly lazy, scrapbooked, been out for lunch, gone to a couple of photography things... and just tried to relax. Amazingly my agency hasn't rung to over me work so I havent had to try and turn it down. They rang today to offer me a night tomorrow... that works! I mean, I love working coz I really do like getting paid. We have decided to go to Ikea on Sunday and spend some of our hard earned cash on the furniture we have been wanting for Ben's bedroom. It has been in the planning stages all year, so we decided it was time that Ben got his upgrade. Poor boy, he has been making do for the last 2 years with a divan bed from the Salvos and a dodgy chest of drawers which don't open and shut too well. So off we go on Sunday for the big shop, new bed, new drawers, new desk! I might even splash out on some new sheets... although to be quite honest I bought him black duvet covers (those are doonas if you are Australian) about 3 years ago at Target and they still look great. They match everything and sort of work for a teenage boy. That was when I went for the black and red theme and bought the most fantastic bright red sheets from Big W which were NOT colour fast and now years later they still make everything else pink. I am sure they are at least 4 years old and still they run!
So.. Sunday shopping trip, definitely looking forward to that. I love Ikea, it is a real passion for me. I wander for hours. It is great that they have food and toilets because it means we don't have to leave the shop at all. And in the restaurant they have maple pecan danishes which are also one of my favorite things.
Once I have done Ben's room, then we are getting close to finishing the inside of the house. I do need to curtain the rumpus room, and it has such large windows! I had the fabric all picked out so maybe I will make that my next saving goal. Then of course I need to do some finishing in the family room. We have curtains to put up on the sliding doors, but need to buy track, consequently curtains are still in a cupboard - i was thinking it would be nice to have them up for winter. They are nothing flash, but were given to us by someone who didnt want them any more. And then there is my big project. Recovering my bargain couches. You may not know this about me but I Love to junk shop. I adore charity shops, jumble sales, garage sales, demolition sales, I have even been known to rescue things from the dump. I just can't help myself. So we have two of the most disreputable couches in the world in our family room. They were once cream or lemon (not sure which) but they are discoloured and marked and faded and they look awful. But I picked the pair up for $40 at a junk shop and they are originally Freedom couches and are really comfortable. On another of my bargain hunting shops I found a roll of upholstery fabric which cost me $20. So all i have to do is recover them. Piece of cake huh? I have done a little bit of upholstery in the past and am hoping i remember how it is done.
I have made a couple of layouts to show you. First up my St Patricks day layout with some pictures of my trip to Ireland.
Not sure that it is my most inspired work, but i wanted to do something green and Irishy! Here is my other layout for today. Now this one I love. I think this is the most gorgeous photo of Lucus.
wow.. the earth just moved again. Freaky. The other day when we had an earthquake it was the first for 10 years. And now we had another! That is kind of bizarre. The whole house shook for about 10 seconds.
Last night we officially finished our photography course. Now I think we just have to practice, practice, practice. Am looking forward to going to NZ so I can take tons of photos.
I think that is all the excitement I can share for this sunny wednesday. see you later

My day off

2009-03-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

So here I am having a day off. Children at school. By staying in bed with the laptop, I can't see the house, or the mess or the washing. Pretty soon though the need for coffee is going to drive me out of bed. The weather is wet and windy. And I have to say that after all these months/years of drought rain is very welcome. So I have sat here and finished my layout that I have been working on for the word up challenge at scrapmatters. Here it is.
I used a new kit (told you I had to use some of the new ones that I have been busily buying) called The walk of the lovers. It is by Choubinette who is a French designer. It is a huge kit with lots of interesting elements, I liked the filmy red fabric and the net edging. And of course I have to say that I love this song so when I had to find a title in a foreign language this was the first thing that came to me.
Yesterday I finished up another layout, this time using a template I found over at we are storytellers. I thought it was a bit different and for this one I used the huge freebie kit called Endless Love by Mimilou Forum, another French group of designers. This kit was massive, there is over 400 pieces in it!
I have been trying to get a bit of scrapbooking done, despite being completely exhausted, so at least I feel like i achieve something besides go to work, sleep and be a terrible mother. (not at my best when i am tired).
Now no freebies from me today, but if you went off and signed up for the newsletter at scrapthatidea like I did, then you will have the links for your qp album today! So that should give you plenty to play with. There are a few other cute little bits and pieces too, but I won't ruin your surprise. Enjoy! I am.

And its the end of my week

2009-03-14T17:35:00.001-07:00

Well, tomorrow I have one of those much loved items... a day off. I am quite looking forward to it really, and i am resolved to say No to my nursing agency if they ring (yep we all know how good I am at that). Of course days off come with this whole list of things that you have been meaning to do, buy groceries, tidy the house, clean my bathroom, catch up my washing.. and thats only the one's that immediately spring to mind. There is a whole selection of stored 'meaning to do' jobs. Like hemming pants. I think I have 3 or 4 pairs now backlogged... i do wonder why my family can't be a standard height. This current trend of leaving your jeans long and letting the ends wear away was obviously started by children whose mothers were as hopeless as me.. finally they gave up and worse the new jeans anyway and thereby started a whole new fashion statement. i personally am waiting for rolled up bottoms to come back in. Another fashion trend for families with a lazy mother who doesnt hem trousers. And so practical, because if you grow you can unroll them. Of course they do have this huge faded stripe across them where they were rolled, but with effort that too could become a fashion.
So moving on from what I should be doing tomorrow, in fact trying hard to forget what I should be doing, I will look at the things I would like to be doing. Well, I have a serious backlog of photos that need scanning. That would be more interesting, I have bought several new kits lately which I really should scrap with. That would definitely be interesting. There are some challenges I was going to enter. The third part of My story Matters has started at Scrapmatters.com. This time it is Your hometown. Now if i scanned my old photos I might find some photos of my hometown, and that would be of definite benefit. So far on my hard drive all i can find are some photos of the cemetary from my mother's funeral. There are photos of all my family's plots. But i was thinking of something a little more scenic.
There is also another challenge I fancied which involved using a title in a foreign language. I have the title all picked out, and the photo, but so far I haven't worked out how to make it all come together. I could do that tomorrow. I have a massage booked for 12 oclock so that is half an hour gone out of the day already. Judging by todays weather it is going to be an inside type day. It is wet and windy today. Mike returned early this morning from the brew camp. He only went overnight and it was a miserable night. I wondered why we didnt go to the lovely bush reserve we went to last year, and Mike told me that it was the scene of one of the biggest fronts of the bushfire... Mirrindindi. Of course, i do remember that in the fire reports. Guess we won't be camping there for a while.
One of the strangest things for me about the bush fires is that we went camping the weekend they started. And it was awful, the heat was just too much. So we took the car and drove round lots of places we hadnt been before. Driving up to Tarralgon and Walhalla, enjoying the native bush and the lovely scenery, smiling as you do at the signs that say, slow koalas crossing, or wombats crossing. I always stare really hard into the bush, but have never managed to see any. Funnily enough (and this is off the topic I was on) the only time I have ever seen a koala in the 'wild' was at Magnetic Island. And it had taken residence in a big tree at the school. You could tell there was something interesting happening by the crowds and the badly parked cars. And there up this tree was this cute as a button koala with its baby. We took a zillion photos and somehow lost the lot. (one of our failure to back ups) So technically it was in the wild, as in, it had chosen to live there, but the Magnetic Island primary school didnt seem like the 'wild' exactly. I had planned on a 4 hr hike to this place where you were likely to see wild koalas but i figured i had already seen one so saved myself the effort! Now back to my bush drive. The point i was going to make was that we drove through lots of little towns that we had never seen before, that a few days later were featured prominently on the news, as being on fire, or at risk from the fires. It was a very sobering thought, that these lovely little towns were now, potentially gone.
Now i have suddenly realised that it is 1200 and i better start getting ready for work. But as you know.. i have a day Off tomorrow!
havent forgotten my qp though. Here it is.
As you can see I have adapted my layout Her First Ball into a qp. I hope you like it. Leave me some love if you do. And if you like this page, then you really should check out the full kit over at Scrapthatidea.com. If you haven't been there, then you really should, because the prices are excellent. I am really starting to notice that the price of scrapbooking kits is getting higher and higher. For those of us downunder, our poor exchange rate makes buying kits in US dollars really quite pricey. For example, the kit I quite liked on scrapgirls was 8.99, At todays exchange rate that is $13.67. Not small change. Scrapthatidea aims to make their kits reasonably priced. There is even a dollar bin! So it is definitely worth a look. And remember the newsletter is out sunday with some very cute freebies in it. I can't say much more.. but I did see this little ad in Sara's blog.
Yep looking foward to checking my email whenever it is that Sunday occurs in the rest of the world.
Oh and this is a BTW the Spirit of Summer kit (as of a few days ago) had raised $3976. Do a few of you want to go and buy it so we top the $4000 mark? It is only available for a few more days over at Scrapntag. Just think, if only 4 or 5 people buy the kit then we reach the mark! And you certainly are getting a bargain for your money.
Definitely done now! See ya later. Just thought of another thing I could do tomorrow..... make another freebie... hmmm.

We made it through the week

2009-03-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

Suddenly it is Saturday. Of course the weekend in it's fullest sense ceases to exist when you are a shift worker. So I have work this afternoon. Mike and Greg are heading off to the Brew Camp and will no doubt return tomorrow a little the worse for wear. Yesterday was a complete washout for me. The lack of sleep finally caught up with me and I slept all day... and all night. But here i am fresh as a daisy and ready to go... sort of. Now last night I did wake up sufficiently to get my qp finished so I could put it up on the blog as a freebie today. So without further ado etc.. here it is.
Hope you like it because there is another one coming along tomorrow. I was really pleased with the layout I made for Sara's new kit Butterfly Kisses... Oh I haven't shown it to you yet have I?
And here are the layouts I made with it.
Of course the rest of the CT has done some stunning layouts too, so wander over to Sara's blog and check them out. While you are there you can have a read about the newsletter for Scrapthatidea.com. The first issue is due out this weekend with some cute freebies. If you aren't signed up you won't get them!
That is me for the morning. got to get myself organised soon and head off for work. It's a hardship but I have to pay the bills somehow. Have a good weekend and don't forget to drop by tomorrow for the next qp freebie.

Night shift and the story of Thursday

2009-03-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

After the exhaustion that was last week, I decided that this week I wouldnt do nights. Still down with the agency for whatever, I resolved to ask for afternoon shifts... and I got one, on Saturday, a particularly well paid day! However that was the only one and I ended up back on nights on Monday night (end of a public holiday therefore too good to turn down) and Tuesday night... and then wednesday night. Got up wednesday at 1200 and went to Pilates ( are you impressed?) and then my boss from my main job rang... did i not realise I was rostered for an afternoon shift? I had it written down for next week! OH no! So i gamely went into work on the 3 hrs sleep i had had, and did some clinic work. Then the afternoon got more bizarre. txt msg from my daughter "by the way Ben came home from his excursion with sea urchin spines in his foot". That didnt sound too good, but I was a bit uncertain about what exactly sea urchin spines would do... like are they venemous? I liased with my medical colleague.. well acutally I asked my husband who was working in Emergency department. He asked the paediatric consultant who said they needed to come out promptly as they often became very infected, aside from the fact that they hurt like anything. Rang children to check how things were at home. Ben informs me that he has googled his injury (of course he has!) and according to a story he read on google sea urchin spines are made from calcium and should be absorbed by his body. You have to laugh dont you? Regardless of his google information I felt that the injury should be checked out to see if we could get the spines out, as they were incredibly painful. So.. my clinic was about finished although it was early... raced home (40 minute trip) picked up damanged child, refused pleas for junk food on the way. Ben is 14 so while his foot was sore, he thought he was still pretty focused on food.
Returned to hospital, about 8.15 by this stage. Emergency department as feral as can be. Triage nurse gives me the 'you are wasting my time look'. I had my book and settled in for a long visit. Then had to withstand Ben's pleas that we visit the vending machines. By this stage I am wondering why I have bothered. I am tired, grouchy, haven't eaten properly and want to go to bed! However Ben's Dad is busy out the back trying to facilitate things for us, and the end result is that we get referred to the GP clinic which has No queue! Not only that, they see us straight away, were incredibly nice, agreed that the spines were a concern and set to work right away to fix him up. The first thing the Doctor said is that sea urchine spines can be very difficult to remove and that often they need an ultrasound to find them all.. oh dear not looking good for getting sleep!. He then told me that the last case he had, needed referral to a plastic surgeon to get them all out! OMG, this is sounding really serious.
Then he got some local anaesthetic and talked really nicely to Ben about what he was going to do. Ben being a staunch little kid declined the local and said, just dig them out. So the doctor did just that, and Ben was as brave as can be. Mike arrived about then having finshed his shift and we all went home about 9.45. Not bad at all, except for poor old me who was so sleep deprived I could barely function. I am still amazed at how brave Ben was. I would have taken the local any time!
So here we are crack of dawn on Friday. My weekend plans are ruined because I had written down my roster wrong and i am in fact working afternoon shifts for the next 3 days. Not flash concisdering I just did 3 nights. So I am having a long sleep in today... I will have to get to that next! But we had planned to go camping.. as it is the annual Brewers camp this weekend. A bizarre event which consists of large groups of men who make home brewed beer going to a camp site, brewing a rock beer, which is heated by having boiling hot rocks tossed into it. And it is all lubricated by large amounts of beer, both home brewed and bought. Yes, just a bit of a drunken weekend really, but the boys enjoy it and last year when i went there were a few other families and it was just a nice break. This year it is down at Wilson's Prom so I was excited as I hadnt been that way before. As it turns out, I wont be going that way! Not this weekend.
So.. having covered yesterdays exhausting adventures, and the fact that my life has had little in the way of sleep lately, I guess I should move on to hobby stuff. Namely the scrapbooking.
Now Sarah has released 2 kits since I last blogged (i personally suspect that she doesnt sleep either). The first is a fantastic freebie kit she made in collaboration with Vicki of A work in progress designs It is called Let it Rock. This is a Great kit. With nice bold colours and a bit of grunge. It also features a bit of a rock theme with cool guitars, perfect for all those photos of would be musicians (we have some pretty cool pictures of Ben with guitar hero). I decided to forgo the guitar theme as some of the other CT had that covered and here is my page.
Now the good news, is that they released this kit a few days ago, so hurry on over to their blogs to pick up the bits, as they are all there! And there is so much you can do with this kit!
I am hoping to get back here tomorrow to give you some more info on Sara's other new kit called Butterfly Kisses, but I wont be offended if you have a look on her blog and check it out today. I am hard at work in my spare time (!!!) on a qp so stay posted.
Now finally I have been trying to put in a little info about books.. I think my main problem is that i read them so quickly that it is hard to remember them all. However I have just finished another JD Robb book, She also writes as Nora Roberts. I like her books a lot. I have decided that it is because her characters are so appealing. They are interesting and funny and seem real. The crime series which are written under the JD Robb name are all about the same detective and are very readable, I am not a huge fan of crime books, but once again, interesting characters make it work for me. the books are also set in the future so i like the little sci fi element. I am reading another book by mercedes lackey, writing this time with James Mallory, a series called The Phoenix enchanted. Unfortunately book 3 is not yet written so I will be having to wait on that. But I have a Nora Roberts series out from the library too, so i have plenty of good reading material up my sleeve.
Ok.. I should be going back to sleep or I wont be having a sleep in this morning. Just wanted to remind ppl that we are still alive.. even if it was touch and go yesterday.

qp freebie

2009-03-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

Good morning. Really early morning. My body hasnt got off night shift time yet, so here i am at 5am. I thought, well if I'm not sleeping, I will write a blog. First of all I want to explain a fundamental courtesy. When you come to a blog freebie you should click the link to download it if you want it. Wait for 4shared to do its slow little thing and then while your freebie downloads you can click your back button on your browser window twice... and voila you are back at the blog with a few minutes up your sleeve to write a nice cheery comment. Your two words.. like thank you. or its nice. make my day. Of the 55 ppl who downloaded my desktop 5 left a comment over on 4shared, which is great. But you know I would just so love to have a little thank you. These are my first ever bunch of freebies and I want to know you like them! Does that sound selfish? I used to go blog hopping and snag freebies all the time and never considered how it felt when I didnt leave a comment. It just feels a bit sad.... i would like to hear from you! Say hi... pretty please.
So here it is.
And here is the link. Don't forget that it coordinates with the word art from yesterdays blog. Scroll back and you can see my finished layout. Of course all the real credit goes to Sara, of Sweet Blossom Design who made the kit. Her wordart in this kit is really superb. I have had a lot of fun with it. Here is the layout I made using a photo I love of Mike and I on my birthday last year.
And here is the kit itself, which is only $4.00 from Scrapthatidea.com

So thats me for this morning. Lots of spring inspiration, even if we are going into Autumn! Enjoy.

The Earth Moved

2009-03-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

Well our big news yesterday was that we had an earthquake. 4.6 on the Richter scale. Just enough to make the whole house shake a bit. It lasted for a few seconds. The kids all came running in asking what it was. The dog barked and barked. She didnt like it at all. Coming from NZ we recognised it as an earthquake, having felt a few, but I was surprised to feel one here, as I didnt think Australia was prone to earthquakes. I checked the news this morning and they confirmed it was an earthquake, but not a major one. It was a bit eclipsed by the news that Collingwood had beaten Essendon at the AFL really.
So where did the week go? It is now Saturday and my last post was Sunday. The truth of the matter is called 5 night shifts. Yep 5 in a row. I have not really done much apart from sleep and work for the whole week. And now this afternoon I am going to work again! It does seem a lot doesn't it? But the agency work has been a bit unreliable lately so I am trying to take whatever they offer. Plus our other big news is that Mike and I have booked to go to NZ for 6 days in April. We wanted to go to Sarah's graduation but have been dithering (as we do). Finally I got online and booked the airfares so we are committed now. We are planning on fitting in a quick trip down to Gisborne to see Mike's parents while we are over, so it is going to be a busy few days. Michael (my son) has said he will come up to Auckland and catch up so we will see him and his twin sister Elizabeth. Can't wait! I have my new camera.. been off to my photography course so I feel ready to take Lots of photos. I better not say that too loud or they won't come visit.
I have been quite busy with some scrapbooking... I mean I do fit in a little bit of hobby time even when I am too tired for anything else. So you saw my desktop? 49 downloads! I was kind of stoked. Today I whipped up a QP with the same kit to celebrate..... Sara has been busy while I have been asleep and she has released her Spring is in the Air kit. Not only that, it is available at her new shop! Ok.. here is the ad that i was supposed to put up on 1 March... only a little late.
So if you go check out Sara's blog, you can have a look at it, and pick up a freebie. How cool is that? And tomorrow if you check back here, there should be a freebie here too!
Sara's blog And you really should check out the new store, because there are some beautiful kits there and the prices are amazing. Scrap that Idea
Just lately i have been playing with long columns of text on my pages. It seems to be my 'thing'. So today i made a wee freebie for you. It's called Watch your children grow. Click on the link to go to 4shared to download.
Here it goes in a page I made of Caitlin.
Of course you can't read it properly so I guess you will have to take the risk and download it... tomorrow you can have the qp of Waiting to bloom to match!
So.. have I caught you up on the important stuff that is happening for us. 1. work.. 2. mike started his uni course... daunting 3. collingwood beat essendon (i have to put that in because Ben thinks its important) 4. earthquake. 5. trip to NZ. yep.. that is the majors. Be happy, i will get back to you tomorrow. And i will show you some of our photos from the course....

2009-02-28T13:03:00.001-08:00

So its sunday... we are off out soon to do our photography course at Melbourne Uni. Thank God we bought a GPS to tell us where that is. However before we head out I wanted to grab a moment to pop up the links and the picture for my FREEBIE. I have never had one before so i am mega excited. This is my desktop.

http://www.4shared.com/file/89963456/3e602e39/march_desktop.html

The version I have to giveaway has a nice clear space behind the frame so you can put your own photo in it. This is a super easy project. Download the files from 4shared and unzip them. There are two sizes. widescreen and narrow screen. Pick which one you need. Open up the file in Elements or which ever program. Duplicate the background layer. Put your photo under the top layer. You just move it in the window. You probably have to shrink it to fit, hold on to the shift key as you do it so it doesnt distort. When everything is the way you want it. You can write some text on the top if you want. Or otherwise. Go flatten image. You now have a jpeg. Save it to somewhere. then in your control panel you can select this file as your desktop. Let me know if i am clear as mud. It is in a zip file so it should be easy to open. Now credit for the kit goes to Sara over at Sweet Blossom designs. This kit called Spring is in the Air will be available soon... so keep checking her blog.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Saturday

It really has to be a simple title because I have just had a few wines while we watched a movie. Its a sad thing when you realise that you are a little worse for wear before 7pm. We got Taken on box office as they give us a free movie a month and we thought we should remember to use them. I have to admit that I really enjoyed it. I dont think it got rave reviews but it was certainly gripping for us. Have finished the Sara Donati book.... gosh that was a nice read. Chicky book definitely but i enjoy those. Now i have started Vanished by Karen Robards. So far so good. But there is a lot on, with new stuff due out from my CTs so i have been very busy scrapbooking. Now i have Never offered a freebie. But I am very much hoping that in the next day or two to have a March desktop for you. I am pretty thrilled with it. For us it features Greg, because he insisted that as his birthday is in March, he was entitled to be on the desktop.
There is lots of other things going on, exciting things afoot, but of course as usual if i tell you i have to kill you. I am not certain how I could achieve that over the internet of course, so i better be keeping my secrets. However keep checking back in and we will see what turns up.

I did wonder if anyone else had an interest in learning how to do digital scrapbooking? I was thinking i might put some links up to resources and freebies to help anyone interested to get started. First things first. You will need a program. This is unavoidable. I am currently using Adobe CS3, although if you have thousands to spend CS4 is out. However I started with Elements and I loved it. It is really nice to use and is very simple. I probably moved up to CS because I wanted to create text paths so if you don't know what that is, you probably don't need to worry. There is a free program called GIMP. I know little about this except it is free and that ppl do use it. PSP is another option. All these programs have free trials which you can download for usually 30 days, so it is a good way to give it a try. Buying the previous release is often a lot cheaper than the newest version and the upgrade can still save you money.
The next thing to think about is storage. Because this is a memory hungry hobby. The thing I did wrong at the start was to organise my stuff badly, and even now I have a reasonable mess where there is lots of stuff from who knows where. When I started digital scrapbooking I had no intention of putting my pages on the net so I never thought of the importance of keeping track of who made what. Wrong. Start right and it keeps it simple. I am now using ACDSee to organise my scrapbooking gear so that i can keyword search. You can also use ACDSee to organise your photos once again with keyword search. If you start organising it makes life easier. My biggest first mistake was to put all my downloaded papers into a directory called papers. That makes it impossible to work out where you got them from. Just leave them in their kits with the designer info with them so that when you make your magnificent layout you can put the credits up with it. I also make a notepad file with a list of what i used and give it the same file name and keep it in the same directory. It just keeps things simple.
Scrapbooking kits come in zip or rar files. I use a program called win rar to unzip the files. Unzipped files are all put into a back up file because if i use the lot i will need these. Obviously everything you have needs to be backed up so if disaster strikes you have it all in another place. I personally swear by external hard drives and they are getting so cheap. I have a gorgeous little portable EHD which cost me less than $100 and has all my backups on it.
Ok so we have a program. Storage is organised. What next?
So here are some links that I have found useful
http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/digital.asp
two peas has lots of free kits, galleries to look through, kits to buy and a section with tutorials.
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/
I am a big fan of the Shabby Princess stuff. Once again, tutorials, free kits, and more.. galleries, blog, shop. Lots of great stuff. Their free kits are absolutely gorgeous.
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/Scrapping101/basics.shtml
Once again more freebies, more tutorials.
www.dafont.com.
I have to mention this site because i have used it so often. Once you start trying to make pages you need lots of new fonts. I save all the zip files in a folder (called font zips) so if i change computers or move my scrapbooking or format then i have them there already to reinstall).
Then there are the blogs... zillions of them with lovely little freebies.
http://digifree.blogspot.com/
http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
http://spraguelab.squarespace.com/blog/
http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/

I could go on for ever. But google search is way more efficient. Most of the blogs link to other blogs and other blogs and so on. There are so many templates out there that make it the easiest thing in the world to complete a layout. I forgot to mention scrapgirls. They also have great tutorials, i actually bought a series of video tutorials which were great.
If anyone finds this helpful, feel free to let me know...
So if you are ready to get going why don't you get your program, have a look at some tutorials and this week i will put up the desktop calendar which is one of the easiest things to personalise for yourself.
The only other thing i would say is the same thing we say about all computer stuff. Save. save. save. No point putting in heaps of work to lose it when the computer crashes.
Now.. just checking back.. yes.. i did make a new page to show off.

Just to give you an idea. This layout is made using a free kit from sweetblossom designs. too easy.

Wednesday

2009-02-25T03:24:00.000-08:00

I think you can tell when my inspiration is low. Somehow the snappy title just doesnt come to mind. I thought of i dont like Mondays, but since it was Wednesday that was out, similarly Thank God its Friday didnt make the cut either. I dont think there is anthing particular associated with Wednesday. Perhaps because it is midweek and no one is really thinking by that stage. Just head down bum up getting through the week. Just a thought...
Anyway today was Grandparents day which is always a bit of a treat for us. Of course it is usually our only day off as well, although in Mike's case, even that wasn't true as he has now gone off to do Night shift. I often leave the f out of night shift. It seems appropriate somehow. So here i am 1038 at night wondering why i am not asleep already. It was the scrapbooking of course. I have just been trying to get this darned page right and somehow it just hasnt been right. I think i will sleep on it now and if i like it in the morning then maybe it is ok. I dont know if my judgement is all that flash by this time.
i am trying to remember if i posted my newest layout and think.. not. So i will pop in my rendition of Lucus finding the perfect bedroom... at Ikea, well where else? I love Ikea. I love all those rooms they set up, doesnt it remind you of playing house when you were a kid. They do look ready to move in and Lucus was dead set on moving right on in. I didnt blame him, it was super cute. We may have to invest in some of the cute accessories for his birthday. We are trying to budget more effectively and not spoil him with new stuff quite so outrageously on ever visit. Today we only bought, gumboots, socks, knickers and a sweatshirt, so that is not much at all really (i know you are thinking, what no toys? but we did buy a whole bunch of bath toys at Aldi on Sunday) Aldi is another shop i like. You go in for groceries and if you are like us you come out with a new garden pump. I am a little vague about its purpose but i hope for $80 it does something useful.
I have had the day off today, but hopefully will get some work thursday/friday. I know i told you on Monday that the agency rang at 8pm and cancelled. Well i published my blog and was relishing a very large, extremely yummy gin and tonic and they rang me back at 9pm and said the hospital has changed its mind!! Jeepers i was just about ready to say me too, but I didnt and got myself out of bed, deserted the G&T and went off to work. it was ok.. i mean.. you go, you work and they pay you, what more can you ask?
My real job at the Birth Centre is so increasingly political that I am finding it exhausting. It seems highly possible that the birth centre may cease to exist. Not that they are threatening to close us, it is more subtle than that. The plans for the changes to Delivery Suite just dont really include us... I think we are in danger of being phased out. So of course every one is up in arms and writing letters... well except me who is just not quite energentic enough. I guess i am a bit pessimistic about it all. The powers that be, obstetricians and administrators will do what they want and i am not all that convinced we can do anything to change that. I just can't seem to raise the energy for jumping up and down.
So.. i think i will post the layout and leave it at that. i have taken dozens of photos today, poor Lucus with his paparazzi but havent got them off the camera yet. It is hard to remember all the stuff about getting the settings right when you have a fast moving target! Night all lots of love.

Welcome to my new home

2009-02-23T01:07:00.000-08:00

Well what do you think? I am pretty pleased with our new blog. Mike and i sat here together on our laptops editing different bits at the same time. i was a bit surprised that it would let us do that. He put the slideshows in, i put in the header and sidebars and voila.... new blog.
So here i sit at 8pm feeling a bit lost. The agency rang and booked me for a night shift in delivery suite at one of my favorite hospitals at about 2pm. So i went to bed, had a rest, got up had a coffee and then... about 10 minutes ago they rang and cancelled. There goes a very substantial amount of money. It is hard to be completely upset because i can tell you that at 8pm i have no desire to go to work for the night. In fact when they ring it is almost a relief which is silly coz the money would have been darned useful. We need to register Mike's car this week and we just paid the power bill so I really do have to work! Particularly after the shopping expedition with Ben yesterday. He is now the proud owner of two pairs of skinny jeans and thinks he is Christmas. there is nothing more amusing than when your teenage son discovers fashion. We have to go to the hairdresser this week. No short back and sides or clipper cut for this kid. Nope, we have to look through the magazines and find a 'style' (get that a style!) that we fancy. I mean the poor kid has hair that is straighter than mine but once he has his hair styled we stock up on product and once again... you guessed it - Christmas.
Greg isnt too stressed about fashion, so long as i dont make him wear shorts. Apparently shorts are a very bad look. But essentially he is just always thrilled if you buy him a new t shirt, whereas Ben would inspect it carefully to make sure he liked it before throwing it on the floor where he keeps the rest of his clothes.
Anyway the point of my post was to celebrate my new blog. yay isnt it cute? I got all the instructions and the pretty stuff from AllyBrown who whips this stuff up and gives it away. I must put her blinkie on the blog. hmmm next project.. find out how to put blinkies up.
So just for those of you who are interested in my dear and adorable family, here is the link to snapfish where i uploaded some photos (they print your first 25 for free so i decided to trial them) For those of you like me who find it difficult to find good photo processing and are fussy about your finished product, Snapfish were very satisfactory. They arrived quickly and look great. Here is the link to our album
http://www4.snapfish.com.au/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=252744401/a=161738466_161738466/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink

extra extra read all about it.

2009-02-22T02:31:00.000-08:00

Couldnt resist the title. Here i am, saturday night, all dressed up and ready to go... to work. Yeah a bit of a downer isnt it. but these days Saturday night just respresents a better pay rate. Mike scored a Sunday morning shift so that will help the bank balance. Ben has been hilarious this week. He is after these new green jeans and i told him he had to be good for a week if he wanted them. So the week is up and tomorrow we have to head off to fountaingate to go shopping. A bit worried about how much this could cost, but he is so excited and it is such a change for him not to be in trouble. Greg of course is in trouble again. Him and his mate took alcohol to the school swimming carnival. Doh! I mean i know i was not an angel as a teenager but i was never caught doing anything that dumb! I think i used to skip school when i wanted to behave badly. I guess he hasnt cottoned onto that notion yet. 3 days suspension. Unfortunately he has a big hole to dig in the backyard which may well take him 3 days. That is because he tried to dig the smaller hole with a pick and went right through the pipe! Now we need a huge hole so we can repair the pipe and fix the greywater. It just seems like the greywater is a job that will never finish!!!!

We have found some solutions for it, since the builder stuffed up the installation, well the plumber really. But first of all we need the hole. So Greg knows what he will be doing. Caitlin has been working hard out at Subway, someone is sick or on holiday so she has fulltime shifts. I think she is finding it pretty tiring. Not that i have seen much of her as she and i seem to be passing in the night a bit.

Had my Medical Review on Friday so hopefully Workcover will make up their mind about what they will and wont pay for. It might relieve some of our stresses. It did make Friday a long day as it was an hour away over in Richmond. We have done a lot of travelling over the last month with the photo course and work and now the review. You get to see lots of the pretty parts of Melbourne... certainly the parts we cant afford!

Mike starts uni this week. He is busy swatting up acid base balance right now. My favorite subject. I hope everyone has read the bushfire kit stuff. It is pretty exciting. I am going to make my donation and download it tomorrow. cant wait.

[caption id="attachment_79" align="alignnone" width="196" caption="Floodtide"][/caption]

I have just finished another good read, Judy Nunn Floodtide. I really enjoy the way she writes about Australia, in this book she certainly made Western Australia and the Pilbara region come alive and made me really curious about going there. It was a hard to put down book with great characters. I'm afraid despite my voracious reading I don't represent much income for the authors as I nearly always get my books from the library or second hand shops. I figure if i advertise them on my widely read blog then at least there is a chance that someone could be inspired to buy. I do wonder how you create a widely read blog. Do I need to be vastly entertaining, or really really funny? i personslly think it is a lot about free stuff and as i havent yet managed to make anything worthy of giving away that wont be happening for a while. However i do regularly send the link to my family (waving to my brother and my daughter) in the hopes that they might read it and catch up on what we are up to.

Speaking of which, my brother is planning on coming over this year, so that is pretty exciting. It wont be as nice as his trip to townsville, its not exactly tropical paradise here! I hope we are still here. On the news tonight there is new concern with the bush fires threatening Warburton. we went camping there in December and I thought it was one of the most gorgeous towns i had ever been to. i do hope it isnt destroyed! The weather remains obstinately dry. the forecast of showers over the weekend came to nothing.

So the weekend is over, not much of a weekend since we both worked through it. I started this post last night and am finishing it Sunday night. We have been and bought Ben bright green stretch drainpipe jeans. Sort of like Kevin bacon in Footloose. I think with a green t shirt and hat he could look like a leprachaun but he thinks he is the last word in cool. Mike is calling him the founding member of the PLS (Pakenham Leprechaun Society), but Ben is so thrilled with his pants that he really doesnt care.

Caleb is off to hospital this week for his surgery so it will be a busy week. We have offered to have Lucus for as long as she need us to. Such a hardship for us! I cant wait.

Now before i go I will pop in my newest layout. this one is part of a challenge series over at Scrapmatters.com. It is called My story matters. So the first challenge was a layout about your birth. The second one is about your name. I am finding that a bit harder, but i thought that a series about me and my childhood might make a nice album for the kids. So I will post this and then it is definitely sleepy time for this chicky. BTW.. see i never stop the bushfire kit has raised over $2000 so far!! isnt that so cool?

[caption id="attachment_80" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="My Story"][/caption]

Exciting news. Bush fires charity kit is out!

2009-02-20T21:52:00.000-08:00

Spirit of Summer is a charity collab benefiting the Victorian bushfire Appeal. Not only has this effected Australians, but human beings the world over. 29 Australian and international designers have banded together to help support many Australians, animals and communities decimated by one Australia's worse national disasters.

What happened? On Saturday, Feb 7, the temperature in Melbourne was 33'c by 9am. By noon it was 40'c and by 2.50 pm soared to 47.9'c (a state record).Thousands of people were also about to start running from the inferno that would become one of Australia's worst peacetime disasters. Trees ignited in the blink of an eye. By the time people heard the roar, it was too late to flee ahead of the flames.Unfortunatly no one or thing could have stopped this inferno that wiped out communities, bushland, and lives within minutes. Many towns now cease to exist!.After watching interviews with survivors, many say that they cant put into words what they went through, saw or felt on that day.Here are just a few pictures(courtesy of google,The age,sbs &abc Aust.) of this horrible disaster:

Why is this charity kit different?No money will change hands at Snap N Tag (our host website). We are asking for your support by donating DIRECTLY to one of the following charities:

Donations
can be made
here: The salvation Army or here: Australian Red Cross

What do I get for my donation and where: You will be helping the people of Victoria, Australia most importantly, but you will also receive this amazing MEGA kit (see below).
There are 167 papers, 326 elements, 2 Alphas and a glitter syles pack as well.How amazingly fabulous is that and you can receive all of this for as little as a $5.00 donation.(**Vouchers will be emailed upon receipt of proof of Donation**)
But thats not all! For showing us how much you all really care, you not only get the MEGA kit but receive a Quickpage Album if you donate over $10.00...WOW how awsome is that!

To receive your Charity collab go here at Snap N Tag (** Don't forget your receipt of donation**)Donated! Wear your blinkie proadly: (made by Michelle Filo)

I want to personally thank those invloved in the creation of this MEGA kit? Dont we all! 29 ladies have done an amazing job planning, creating,collating and Advertising for this Charity appeal! Below is a list of blogs with the names of these 29 people. Please leave some love for them all to let them know how appreciated there efforts have been.

A work in Progress-designs by Vicki
Ambowife Designs
Carjazi Designs
Carolyn Kite- Co-Owner of Scrap N Tag
Chaos Lounge
Charlie's Digiscraps
Color with Caryn
Desert Designs
DigiLover's Addiction
Emcee Scraps
Flergs
Gillian Foley- owner of Snap & Scrap
HoleyCow Designs
Jeanette Bollinger Designs
KimB's Designs
KylieM Designs
Laitha
Lindsay Jane Designs
Mel_h Designs
mITSYBELLE
Piggyscraps Designs
SKrapper Digitals
Scrap'it Designs
Scrappin happens/Julie C Designs
Shazbutt's Digi Scrapz
Sweet Blossom Designs
WenchdGrafix Designs
Zesty Digi Designs
[ksharonkdesigns]

Personally i would like to thank Vicki and Shaz for all the organing this wonderful collab and to Carolyn for hosting this at her website, collating and doing the previews.You have done an amazing job ladies. Also to my fellow designers, without your generosity this Charity Kit would never have happened...well done!

Monday

2009-02-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

I did have a lot of plans for Monday. Things I was going to do, but it all changed with one phone call. Yep the ppl from my Nursing Agency caught up with me and offered me Work. The trouble is that i just cant say no. so i didnt. So i spent my afternoon and evening supporting a woman and her partner having their first baby. As always it is a special experience for me. I really do enjoy my work and get so much satisfaction when i see them holding their baby. i am always quick to point out the photo opportunities too so nothing gets missed.

I did whip up a layout last night. Somehow it was one of those easy ones that just come together like magic. I used Sara's Bohemia Kit again. I guess by now everyone has been off and downloaded it from her blog.

http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/

[caption id="attachment_69" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Look Gramps"][/caption]

I got a letter today from the Red Cross. I registered online as a blood donor so that I had that part of the paperwork filled out. So they sent me a letter of thanks explaining that 30 000 ppl have offered to donate blood! Isnt that phenomenal? Particularly as all you get for your donation is tea and a biccy here. Anyway they said they will get back to me but probably wont be for 3 weeks or so as they are so overwhelmed with offers. It is nice to think that ppl are willing to give.

On the same note the charity collab kit is coming together very nicely. It looks like everyone has worked quickly and I think it will be an amzing kit. I hope everyone will buy it, even if only just to support the cause. It has a beautiful summery theme and will be really useful... i mean you always need a new summery kit right?

That freebie kit I downloaded yesterday Endless Love was absolutely enormous. I think there were over 400 items in it. I cant wait to have a play with that as well. for the the moment tho, it is definitely good night as i notice that it is now tomorrow. so good morning as well.

Quick note

2009-02-15T01:08:00.000-08:00

It's now Sunday evening. Somehow the weekend has gone again. Highlights? Well we did enjoy Valentines Day. Mike worked an early shift, came home and we spent some time together. Went and bought Berwick Thai, along with about a million other people. i swear it was barely standing room in there when i went back to get my order. Fantastic food though! Ben wasnt impressed, so he had 2 minute noodles. We had an early night because we had our Photography Course today. Had to be in town at 9.30. It was a bit of a struggle, but we were kind of on time. Near the end they asked for models... a couple... yep us! So we sat on a bank in the gardens while 40 odd people took photos of us. it was incredibly unnerving. We then went up to the cafe for a coffee. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we were at the cafe where Angelique works!! There she was.. working. How funny.

Now i have to admit that i have no new pages to put up today. I have spent the last 24 days putting stuff on a page and taking it off again. Finally i havew closed photoshop and given up!

Hey but head over to Sara's blog to pick up the elements of her Bohemia kit. They are so gorgeous.

Then I spent hours today downloading a huge free kit from this link

http://bellisasscraps.canalblog.com/

It is the most gorgeous freebie valentine kit.

enjoy

Saturday

2009-02-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

Well, i guess my biggest excitment is that the Bushfire charity kit is going forward. Stay posted but it is under creation as we speak. It may not raise much compared with the telethon and the efforts by coles and safeway but it is a gift from the heart and i think that is precious.

Today Sara over at Sweet Blossom Designs released the first part of her new freebie kit. I can't really believe she is giving it away. It is a real winner, with lots of those reds and browns that i love.

Pretty cute huh? today its the papers

and tomorrow... well just go and look for yourself coz you will be impressed.

Here are a couple of layouts I prepared earlier (i love saying that, it sounds like those cooking shows).

[caption id="attachment_61" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Charmer"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_62" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Mum's grubby boy"][/caption]

Poor old Mike is working a late early, so he will be tired this evening, he worked late early. late early. exhausting stuff. But he wants to come home and brew. About time he did so as we are all out of beer! We have been having to buy it! Ben has decided he urgently needs flourescent green tight drainpipe jeans. Are these really making a fashion comeback? I am worried he will look like a leprachaun. However with his current attitude and lack of effort I have told him he will have to actually do his chores for a week before we go shopping. I dont know whether it is hormonal, puberty kind of thing, or just how Ben is, but he has been fairly monstrous for the past month. Every time you check whether he has finished the dishes, you will find a stash of stuff that he has thrown out of sight so he doesnt have to deal with it. He has just been fighting so hard against doing anything helpful. Then he gives you that cute cheeky grin and asks you to do something for him. Right at the moment it just aint working. Mike is threatening to turn off the dishwasher for 3 weeks and see if they like doing them by hand since they are managing to stack the dishwasher so badly that we have filthy plates. I guess our children are just so spoilt. I grew up doing the dishes, mostly on my own. And it had to be done my parents way. no cold water, only hot. The bone handled knives couldnt be soaked in the sink. The teapot had to be washed just so, then the benches wiped. The table cleared and wiped. Was i this dificult? maybe i am lucky my mother is dead, so she cant comment.

Trying to think if there is anyother excitement in my life. But no, not really. It is valentines day, so hopefully we can have a nice evening together. I am all for heading for the bedroom and locking the door. maybe watch a romantic movie... bottle of wine and whatever..... I wont go into detail. The kids dont think that is very romantic. They think we should be buying flowers and chocolates and going out. But sometimes a night in is just as good.

Then tomorrow we have to be up for our Photography course outing. That should be fun. I must make sure my battery is charged and my card is empty. maybe read through the instructions again. With luck tomorrow or Monday I will be able to post some photos...

So thats it for Valentines Day. Happy Valentines Day all. Hope you have a nice one.

Bush fires havent gone away!

2009-02-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

I keep hoping to wake up to heavy rain and the news that the bush fires are out or under control. But it isnt happening. I keep waking to sunshine and winds. both of which seem the wrong type of weather to be helpful. Washing is drying well but I would be happy to put it in the dryer if the fires could get dealt to! Healesville is still under threat. I keep thinking that we havent yet been to the animal sanctuary up there... i keep meaning to go and now I may never have the chance. i wonder what they are doing to protect all their animals?? I took the kids along to give blood the other day, but apparently they have been so flooded with donations that they really dont need it now. I have registered as a donor and in a few weeks, it seems they will need more. Its amazing though to think of how many people must have responded!! I have offered the caravan as temporary accommodation if needed. And finally the idea for the collab charity kit seems to be getting off the ground. i had done quite a bit of work trying to put the idea out there and then bumped into someone else working on the same idea! So we combined forces and it actually might happen. I guess our proceeds wont be impressive by comparison with the $20 million from the telethon last night but every bit counts.

Working hard on my new blog... wish i was more technically minded coz i do so much swearing trying to make things work. I mean do i look like someone who can edit HTML? In fact code always looks like something that I should leave well alone. I mean it is on par with changing the bios settings on your computer... Not for dummies!! but apparently i am going to have to do some editing to get what i want, so you understand why i am trying to get it right first.

Now yesterday I found this incredible bargain

http://subscriptions.creativelivingmedia.com.au/subscriptions/

Check out this link for a 6 month online subscription to craft mags. How cool is that? Unfortunately they have canned the Digital Scrapbooking mag that i subscribed to. I really liked it but it is gone. The beauty of online subscription is you are not destroying any rainforests!!

So what did i do yesterday? I made a page of course.

[caption id="attachment_50" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Feed me"][/caption]

I tried to finish my book, but i kept falling asleep. I read the label on my new medication and discovered that 'it may cauuse drowsiness'. boy they werent kidding. I had a lunchtime nap and was asleep at 10 with my book in hand. We did fit in pizza and a movie for dinner. We watched Wanted with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Very shoot shoot bang bang. But kind of entertaining too. I enjoyed it and i am not really big on violent movies. Having said that i am thinking that I might check out the newish Liam Neeson one, Taken i think it is called. I figure i can deal with violence while I listen to that voice.

Greg is very disappointed not to be giving blood right now. He is so funny and mature and .. let me tell you the story. When he was about 13 he had a seizure. We called an ambulance, he was taken to hospital and they decided to put an iv cannula in his hand. I asked for Emla first (nurse mother) but they said he was big and they didnt have time. Honestly they were awful to him. I think there were at least 5 staff holding this poor boy down while they forced this iv into him. I was torn between trying to ensure he got the iv because it was important and horror at the way they were doing it. Later on the ED dr came back and told Greg off. Told him he was a big sook and that he needed to grow up. It was awful. I nearly complained but felt a bit torn as Mike worked in that department at the time. Well they started him on Epilim and he had to go back for a blood test to check the levels. Honestly he was shaking he was so frightened. The phlebotomist did a fantastic job and he came out kind of ok. Said it hadnt been too bad. He then neglected to take his Epilim because he didnt like it. (big kids - honestly!) So he has been unmedicated since. Now Greg is 16 and he wants to join the army and is talking about getting his car licence. Sorry I said but you have seizures, you cant do either. He doesnt have them often, maybe 4-5 times a year, absence seizures, so in a way they dont seem like a big deal. But they will prevent him from doing what he wants.

So I told him that if we started back on the meds, that he is young enough, that if we can have 2 seizure free years they will call it juvenile epilepsy and he can then go and do what he wants. I put it all into his hands. So suddenly Greg is nagging to go to the Dr. And we went the other day and the Dr ordered a number of blood tests. I cringed a bit thinking of Greg's previous trauma. Well, get this. Greg says, I could get them done on the way to school. I said, dont you want me there. Nope.. he can do it fine. And he did. No big deal he told me. do you realise how amazing that is?? And now he wants to give blood. wow! I am pretty blown away by that big step up.

So now we have to see a Neurologist. Guess which silly family hasnt organised their private health insurance yet? Every year at tax time they sting us and the financial advisor says.. get medical insurance. So i am off work for 4 days, so i might make that a priority. And my calendar. I made it in December and just plain ran out of time and energy to print it, so now it is February. So what I thought is this... how bout I make it a march to march calendar? Then it isnt wasted. I have put a lot of effort into it. The trouble is that it takes quite a while to print it ( like on my home printer) and then i have to take it to Office works where they put that cute metal spiral binding and a cover on it for $5 per calendar and a hole to hang it by. Honestly it is so gorgeous. If you are a member of my family you should be emailing me asking where it is.

Now i have a few family pics to share. These were taken on a recent trip to Ikea. Lucus loved Ikea. From the awesome breakfast to the toys, and then he found his dream bedroom (which he had to be dragged out of kicking and screaming). then we went over the road and walked along by the river and I grabbed a few photos.

[caption id="attachment_51" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Greg and Lucus (our ginga ninjas)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_52" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Lucus"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_54" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Lucus's ikea bedroom"][/caption]

I finally downloaded the pics off my camera yesterday... do you know that some of the photos date back to my trip in sept/oct last year. Our Ikea trip was back in January!

so thats enough for today.. . off to look for Medical Insurance. I wonder if they will waive the waiting period?

Still here!

2009-02-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Well for all the family and friends that have rung txted and emailed... the bush fires are not currently headed our way. I still dont feel safe.. they are way too close for comfort. Today i have decided to pack a box of 'this would have to be saved stuff'', So i guess that tells you where we are at. We shouldnt be affected. But if the wind changes direction.... The odd thing is that when we moved to Melbourne the bush fire smoke was really bad, it hung over the city like a blanket. right through Canberra, through Albury Wodonga and then down into Melbourne, we drove through this heavy dark haze. I guess it is the wind direction but we have none of that. The wind is obviously sending it the other way, it does mean that we have nice clear blue skies, but in the distance we can see the smoke.

I guess everyone has seen the footage on the TV, it is certainly more than anyone can believe. I tend to cry through the news, feeling so awful for the ppl who have lost so much, including their lives. With the speed of the fires you obviously needed to be able to make an instant decision if u wanted to go and even then that wasnt always enough.

On a more personal note, Sara over at Sweet blossom Designs has released her Sweet Valentine Kit. It is pretty cool, absolutely beautiful reds and whites, with wonderful elements. I am always so blown away by her kits, and she prices them so cheap... they are a real bargain.

Also available for nothing.. like free.. is the Sweet Valentine Add on... incredible value!

[caption id="attachment_44" align="alignnone" width="390" caption="sweet valentine kit add on."][/caption]

So head on over to Sara

http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/

Here are my layouts with the kit.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="This is Caitlin a few years ago now"][/caption]

I have done a bit of scrapbooking lately as my back has been disgusting. May 22 is the 2 year anniversary of my back injury which apparently was minor and should get better quickly. Now i feel like i am facing permenant disability. I have been through a few weeks of really feeling depressed. whats the point of getting out of bed to deal with pain? I am trying to get myself more motivated... have a new physio plan, back to the pilates and determined to try and be as good as i can be. But I still have to battle with workcover who think i should be better and are arguing about paying for time off work and the mri and... anyway upshot is a Medical Review. I go and see an independent doctor and he says how good i am... or not. I was a bit concerned when I read the letter as the appointment is for December 30th. 1899. No i didnt type it wrong. I think maybe they did! So i rang and the appt is 20 February.. this year. Makes more sense.

So Sarah has some more new kits and stuff coming out so I have been a busy little scrapper even if nothing else is working well! The photography course is going well. We did lighting last tuesday and have a practical day on Sunday at the Treasury Gardens. It is a huge travel committment as it is about an hour each way for each session. But I am learning! I took a whole bunch of photos of Lucus the other day which look pretty good. Now i need to download them and have a look. I have aperture priority sort of working, but i am not too good with shutter priority. maybe i will just practice them one at a time. Looked into a tripod, apparently what i really need is a carbon fibre job, which are around $1000. Damn. There is one on ebaby for about $300 from China. you just dont know do you. It might be a piece of crap... but it could be the bargain of the century. but at $90 postage you cant really be affording to post it back. However the same place has camera hoods which I need and they also have polarising filters, once again, at a tenth of the price... worth the risk... I just dont know. I figure the lens hood is a piece of plastic so it cant affect my photo. But the filter is going over my lens... it could affect my photo. but.. risking $14 is perhaps not such a bad idea. I mean.. in real terms that is just two big mac combos right?

Ok.. you can tell that i have nothing to do right now coz i am waffling. However i will finish with my other bit of news. I am currently working on a new blog over at blogspot as it is far more customisable. I want to get it all set up before i move, but hopefully soon i can have a much more interesting blog with slideshows and stuff.

Finally books. i wanted to put books in here coz i read so much and I have to say that Stephanie Meyers books were an absolutely wonderful read. wow! I was so hooked. Right from the first page. i was so lucky and they were lent to me by one of Caitlin's friends so i didnt have to buy them or wait for them. Brilliant. What a great read! I have not yet seen the movie, but am prepared for disappointment. Then I had a week of magic with Terry Brooks. I have read a few of his before, some of the Elfstones books were quite good. Then i saw a series called Genesis of Shannara with the first book titled Armageddons Children. As a lover of post apocalyptic stories i was hooked.

[caption id="attachment_45" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Armageddons children"][/caption]

So i managed to get all 3 of these from the library and loved them. Easy to read, plot doesnt drag. Characters are interesting. Have passed them on to Mike who is on book 3. (that means they are quite a quick read as he does read quite slowly) I believe we may now own book one as Mike dropped it in the river when we were camping and I dont think it will ever look the same.

And then with that series finished Caitlin brought me some more Jacqueline Carey. Kushiel's Justice. This is the second book of the second trilogy. I do not recommend these to the prudish. They are at times a little explicit and perhaps not mainstream. Brilliant read though. I loved her first series and own them and am really enjoying series number two.

[caption id="attachment_46" align="alignnone" width="100" caption="Kushiel's Justice"][/caption]

So.. that is me. Frustrated by my ongoing back problems. enjoying my photography but wish I understood it a whole lot better. ( i dont want to learn, i want to know) Scrapbooking is going well. Angelique, Caleb and Lucus have moved to a 2 bedroom unit about 10 minutes away and seem relatively happy. We are a bit torn. It is nice to have some peace back but we miss Lucus like crazy. Will post some of my new photos tomorrow... or when i get to it.

Linz

Australian Bush Fires!!!!

2009-02-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Here in Australia it is hard to escape the awful images of ppl who have lost everything in the bushfires. Townships have been wiped out, lives lost, the death toll continues to rise. I watched the news last night and watched a woman sobbing as she described how she had lost everything to a fire that just came out of nowhere. Scenes of farmers walking through paddocks euthanasing their stock who were so badly burnt but still alive.

It makes me want to do something!! The first thing on my list is giving blood this afternoon, there are so many people injured, apparently they are desperate for donors. Then i am planning on going through my house to see what we can take to the donation centre. But the other thing i would like to do would need a huge amount of help. I would like to see if i can find enough digital scrapbook designers who would be prepared to donate some time and effort into creating a charity kit with the proceeds going to the relief fund for victims. At the moment it is a concept, I am still working on a theme, I havent figured out where it would sell, or anything. But if you are a designer, or a scrapper then maybe you could help. I know that there are disasters happening all over the world, but this one is happening on my doorstep. It is happening in townships that I drove through a week ago.

Bush fires.

2009-02-08T02:07:00.000-08:00

Well if anyone has seen the news then they will know that victoria and Melbourne itself has been through a really tough weekend. Things arent over yet, but they know that there are at least 70 dead in these huge fires that have swept through rural victoria. But some of it has been really close to home. In fact there were even fires in Narre Warren and 6 homes were lost there.

For us it was just lots of scary news, days of incredible heat and the knowledge that incredible tragedies were occurring rather too close for comfort. However we are all ok, but glad that the temperature has come down a bit. Early night tonight as we had to be up early for our Photo course which was 9.30 in town. that meant leaving home at 8.30. not my thing at all. No excitement to report. too tired anyway.

Hot!

2009-02-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today they have forecast that we will have the hottest day in Melbourne's record. 47 degrees has been estimated! At the moment I can tell you that we have incredible hot winds, dust flying everywhere. The sun... yep could be 47, I know its hot. And in the background the huge plume of smoke which is the fires in Bunyip National Park. Thats about half an hour away driving. i dont know how long it would take a fire to travel that distance, but i am a wee bit nervous. I admit that i have made a mental checklist of what we should save if we had to leave.... Hard drives, laptops, quilts... and i guess Ben's school books which i bought this morning. They are also forecasting a cool change later. Here's hoping that it comes with rain. There they are up north with floods and here we are so dry... just ready for the fires.

On the creative scene... I have knocked off another layout. Funny this is one I love and Mike says... its ok. (that means he doesnt like it much)

Tomorrow is the 2nd day of our photo course, the practical session where we hopefully come to grip with the fancy settings. I have been meaning to get my camera out and try and work it all out, but that would mean trying to read the manual again and I just cant face it. I mean this manual has 2 pages devoted to inserting the battery correctly. and i think i have that part down pat, so i dont want to push myself to hard by trying to get through the section on aperture and shutter speed.

I have just finished trying out my new state of the art cleaning product. I mean for some years now i have been certain that the cleaning product industry is just one big con. How do we become so dependent on so many different products? Then i was reading on a forum the other day about using dilute white vinegar in a spray bottle for cleaning... and i thought... well why not. Funny thing is that it cleaned just as well as my fancy stuff although it didnt leave a scent of pineforest behind. The toilet, basin and bath and mirror all look great. But the glass shower screens arent quite there. i will have to see what the greeen ppl say about that. Maybe they will say clean them more often, every 3 months may not be enough. but i dont want to wear them away by over cleaning either.

well i am doing what any sane person would do in this heat. I am running a cool bath. I figure that will be the best way of cooling off. Cold beer, cool bath, good book.... works for me

Its not working

2009-02-04T00:45:00.000-08:00

project 365 that is. It is February and so far although i have taken the photos, i havent managed to blog them. There are no scrapbook pages. Most of it is still sitting on the camera. And I realised that we take photos ALL the time... i mean ask the kids. And i am not going to put more guilt on myself for not achieving this. I have a goal... it is photographing our life. creating a rich and full history for the children to enjoy. To document them at each age and stage, to have a record of their achievments. And we are already doing that so I officialy quite before i start. I will just stick with what i have always done. taking photos.

First night of our photography course last night, and we have our practical day on Sunday so i am hoping that i am going to learn more about not only using my camera but composing my photos better.

I am off tonight to do a night shift... my favorite, although i do really appreciate the $$. Then in the morning i need to zoom down to Frankston for my MRI at 8.45 am. I am not sure how I am going go make it home, but it is going to take some effort. Of course today was a bit emotional, it appears that Workcover, the insurance company who handle work injuries may not pay for my MRI, but certainly i cant get them to pay for it until they have thought about it. So I have to pay tomorrow and put in the receipt in the hope that they pay. Once again back to that cleft stick... do i want them to find something, proving that my back is damaged and then hopefully treatable, or am i better off with a soft tissue injury which doesnt really show up but hurts like hell, but can be managed with physio, massage and medication. Right at the moment it is hinging on whether or not I have reinjured myself, which would be a second claim and require new paperwork and approval or if i have exacerbated the previous injury in which case it is all covered. Either way they have to pay for the MRI, it is just a question of when really. I am just finding it a bit much, not just the financial pressure, but the emotional games. Anyway better get myself organised so i can get up and go to work. What a delightful thought.

two days of school... loving it

2009-02-03T03:36:00.000-08:00

Second day of school. I like it. Mike and I had the day off together, usually this is our Lucus day but Angelique had made other plans today. So we got over our disappointment and basically lazed in bed most of the day. Scrapbooked read, played with our cameras as tonight was the first night of our camera class. It was.......a bit overwhelming. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO.. ummm was there another thing. Anyway then it is about light and exposure and if you put it on auto it will probably be fine but if u try to do it manually you could end up with a magnificent photo or a complete dud. I think that is the summary of the content. 1hr drive to the class, but we nipped into the pub and had a beer and some dinner so that made it worthwhile.

As you may know i have some back issues after a workplace injury in 2007 (april 2007) so it is a while ago now. Basically it is not improving and i am taking increasing amounts of pills so my doc has given me a referral for an MRI. I rang up today to book with my calendar open thinking about the next month or two and got a cancellation spot for Thursday. So I dont know whether I hope they find something so they can potentially fix it, or dont find anything so we keep going with physio, massage and drugs. I have to admit that this last few days i have been having a bit of a pity party. Just generally feeling a bit sorry for myself and frustrated by how limited I feel. The constant tiredness from the pills, best not to mention the other side effects of the meds, you dont want to know about that part. I was pleased that I managed to make a couple of layouts because my inspiration is a bit low. Here is todays effort.

Here is the link for her blog if you want to grab the kit

http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/search/label/Boy%27s%20World

And i can now tell you that I have a place on her Creative Team. yay. I just know I am going to have fun working with such great kits!.

And on that note I will take my nightly medications and go to sleep. Night all.

So now I know

2009-02-02T02:47:00.000-08:00

Well that was a title to grab your curiosity wasnt it? What do i know. That wordpress.com does not allow plugins, so i cant put up my slideshow etc. Now I have to decide whether to move this riveting bulletin to another site or just work with what i have. Right now, working with what I have seems a better option than starting off again. Besides probably no one reads this.... feel free to comment. So today, back to school day. Greg doing year 12 vcal, Ben doing year 9. Caitlin job hunting.... well not really. Right now she needs a small bomb under her. She makes enough from her part time job to keep her supplied with the basics... books, dvds and junk food. So today i put the hard word on about board. We'll see how that goes. I am going to try and post our February desktop, showcasing of course Lucus. And if that works I will slip in the page I made today about Caitlin. Fingers crossed.

[caption id="attachment_17" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Each month I make a new desktop.. this is February"][/caption]

Ok.. that went well. Lets try for the scrapbook page...

well it kind of works. Not the blog i envision, but given time I might get there. Today the weather was 'sultry' - well that was what the radio guy said. That means humid.. 31 degrees, down from the 35 yesterday. I got a shift at a private hospital in town this afternoon. It takes me an hour to drive there. 5 hrs into the shift they tell me they dont need me any more. I was reasonably annoyed.. but came home and spent the evening with my family so i guess that was nice. Still gotta work to make money... and that really does help with the paying of the bills etc.

Apparently the bush fires are almost out. 29 homes lost and all because of an arsonist. It really does make you question what kind of a world we live in doesnt it? We were just lucky no lives were lost. And what about the little girl thrown off the Westgate bridge a couple of days ago by her father. Custody dispute. Now she's dead. Makes you feel so confused. what is happening in these people's heads?

But I guess my problem is a bit closer to home. My boys have really rocked my world with their behaviour. I thought Benjamin being picked up for shoplifting in September was bad enough, but now they are both charged with burglary. I feel like i am the most honest person in the world. I take the extra change back to the shop when they give me too much. And I know our children have so much stuff. There was I happily choosing them cell phones for christmas when they decided they would steal someone else's. I just dont get it. It really hurts. Ben has to go to court this time. i cry just thinking about it. I keep wondering where I have failed them. How can they be so bored that burglary seems like a good idea.... that was their reason. They were bored. big sigh.

On a happy note, Libby has sent me a couple of pics from Christmas, so this is the twins as of december.

Kind of cute... although i was hoping for a whole bunch of them... maybe she is drip feeding them to me.

anyway getting late and I am going to do some sleeping.

Suddenly realised that I did have something that rated a mention today. Today was my mothers birthday. She would have been 80. I was going to pop up a photo of her, but none on this computer. So good night, sleep tight.

Saturday 31 Jan

2009-01-30T23:01:00.000-08:00

I have just spent fruitless minutes, maybe hours trying to navigate this site to see where to put in extra stuff like slideshows and pics and honestly I just know that somethings are beyond me. But i figure if you want to have a blog you have to do some blogging right? So here is the year to date...

We have just come back from a camping trip to Glen Cromie, thats about half an hour from home by a little river.. I suspect it would be a creek in NZ but I wont be picky. It was cool and wet and that was very important as we have just had 3 consecutive days above 43 degrees. Unbelievably hot and perhaps a little more stressful when you are staying in a caravan that heats up like a hotbox. We found that if you put your deck chair in the river, used a rubber ring for a footstool, beers in a bucket with a rock, mosquito repellent in one of the cup holders, sunblock in another, then for added coolness a handtowel that you dunk in the river periodically and wipe round your face and neck then it was almost bearable. Basically we spent from 2pm to 7pm like that. Unfortunately Mike dropped his book in the river so I suspect we will be buying that one. We took young Lucus who was most entertaining, although required constant supervision once he got over his fear of the river. maybe fear is a good thing. It is only 35 degrees today so it is just really hot rather than horrendously hot.

Monday school goes back, although for the first time ever Caitlin won't be returning as she has finished year 12. She is still in search of a job. I think if she applied for more she might increase her chances but i suspect that she has been in holiday mode for the last few weeks. might have to kick her out of the house on Monday morning with her CV in hand and send her door knocking. That will go down a treat!

When i get my blog running smoothly I am hoping that it will be vaguely interesting with a slideshow and maybe links to the books i am reading, unfortunately i am still at the stage of googling how that is done and when i read the instructions i cant figure them out. i am wondering if it is one of those things that you need to pay for the upgrade to do the fancy stuff with. BTW i am reading the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer, kind of cool but havent seen the movie yet. I have just finished the Genesis of Shannara series by Terry Brooks. Good reading, not too much like hard work.

So that is us in a nutshell. I am busy doing my usual stuff. Scrapbooking, reading and trying to keep house. Unfortunately the last one isnt one of my strengths. Still the hot weather makes washing a cinch so there has to be some benefits.

Linz

Saturday 17 January

2009-01-17T00:59:00.000-08:00

I think i will have to work on catchier titles, but as this is my first post i will stick with the date for today. Because today was the day that i would participate in project 365. now a good blogger would immediately provide you with a link to websites about project 365, but i am a novice and havent got a freshly prepared website. In fact i am squeezing in this little bit of blogging very quickly before i go to work for my night duty.

So firstly project 365 is quite simply about taking a photo each day and creating a kind of photo journal of your year. It can be as arty or as mundane as you want. I am hoping for a bit of both. We will see. You might notice that i am 17 days late starting. That would be fairly normal for me. in fact i nearly didnt start. But it just seems like such a good idea.

Now secondly about us. I think we are fairly ordinary people. I am a midwife, my husband is also a midwife but is now working in emergency department. he is starting work on his masters this year so i think it might be me blogging while he studies. But we love taking photographs. I would like to say we love photography but that is an exaggeration because really we are rank beginners. We have beautiful cameras. He has a canon 400d and i have the canon 40d. (yep mine is bigger than his). We are starting a photography course in Feb so i am really hoping to improve my skills this year. I have a particular interest in photos of babies and pregnant/labouring women. If i could train for a new career (and i may have to as my back is a bit dodgy) it would be as a photographer. I work with cs3 and am constantly learning new things about my software... there is so much to learn! i am a passionate digital scrapbooker.

As we go.. i hope to put some links up to sites i visit and lots and lots of photos. Today is just a hello day. Please dont come here expecting too much. I am a novice blogger. So it is going to take me a while to get comfortable here and rearrange the furniture the way i would like it.

http://www.digishoptalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=295002&cat=all&ppuser=8390

Just a little example of my work with some information about me. Now additionally i need to make sure that i give credit to Happy Scrap Girl over at Scrapmatters.com for her gorgeous Taylor kit which i used to make my blog header. it is one of my favorite kits!

Hello world!

2009-01-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Wordpress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!