Woo hoo!

I was delighted to receive this little award from the beautiful Heather Jacobs recently. Thank you very much H, you gorgeous thing.



I believe that the idea behind it is to share some things about ourselves that our bloggy friends may not know. So I have had a quick brainstorming session and come up with this.

1. I have a science degree but have never used it.
2. I have a serious addiction to fine china - Wedgwood being my absolute favourite.
3. Within the last month I have developed a taste for tinned salmon. I used to loathe it before and put it in the same category as cat food.
4. I have always had a cat and their names have always started with M. I have Meg and Misty at the moment.
5. I am a 3.5 year breast cancer survivor. I no longer have any boobs - they tried to kill me.
6. My brother played AFL football for around 15 years.
7. A fertility specialist once told me I probably would never be able to have children. 2.5 years later I gave birth to a 10 pound little girl conceived naturally on the first attempt. So there.
8. I have a deformed toe nail. TMI sorry.
9. My step children both have names of Middle Eastern countries!
10. I have been paid to act as a prostitute. LOL.

So that is all I have got right now. I am going to think about who I am going to pass this award on to and get back to you. I have to go do the floors before Molly wakes up and trashes them again.

Til next time.......xxx

Nanna loves Molly

The Feb 1st challenge from Show Us Your Stuff was perfect for me to scrap this pic of Molly and a conversation I had with Nanna about her. My mum and I are absolutely smitten with Molly so we regularly talk about what we love about her. I thought I should preserve one of these conversations for Molly's benefit.

The SUYS stuff challenge was to complete a LO about LOVE ( think I have that covered) and add a handmade heart. I made a heart out of twisted wire, embellished it with a bit of cotton and a handmade rose.

1 TWO 3!

I completed this LO for the latest 123 Challenge - use the colour cream, the word 'about' and include upcycling (recycling objects that would otherwise be ditched)on the page.

I created this page about the surprise I received on Valentine's Day -  coffee in bed and a hand picked rose. He did apologise for the quality of the rose, he said it was the best one in our garden at the time!

I enjoyed finding things to upcycle. I included an engagement party invitation, a piece of netting from the back of some tiles we recently replaced, a clothing tag, some kraft type paper that I kept from some packaging and some coffee stains in lieu of paint.

I am also very grateful for winning a prize in this comp last month. Thanks so much!

TFL.

White with Brown makes Light Brown

Just finished my first LO for the month. I have been busy sewing, having temporarily lost the urge to scrapbook.

So I used the White With 1 challenge for this LO - white + brown + a vintage item.

My vintage item is this metal bookplate. Used some pics taken of Molly last week playing with "Roomba", a robotic vacuum. A month ago she was scared of it and used to grip onto me for dear life when she saw it. I used to tease her with it because I liked the hug - something my little girl is usually too busy to do.

Alas, my brave child now turns it on, waits for it to move in her direction and then runs away laughing. All very cute.

Online Safety

Hi All,

In my previous life (which is about to creep back up on me in a couple of months grrrr) I served to keep kids safe on the Internet. As part of my job I would routinely lecture children on internet safety and the things they should and shouldn't publish online or tell people about. In recent posts from some of my very favourite scrappers I have become worried about the amount of information that they are making available.

I just want to remind everyone, as parents, that we too need to be a little bit savvy online with the information we post about our children. Most of us include our last names on our blog, where we live, mention in passing info about our kids names, what sports they are into, post pics of them in the school uniform - all things that make it easy for online predators to trace our children if they so desire.

I know this is a harsh topic and you probably think that it doesn't happen much ( or if it did, offenders wouldn't use scrapbooking sites) but I can tell you that it does. I did this job every day for almost 4 years and the things I have seen, heard and investigated frighten me more today ( now that I have a child of my own) than ever before.

I just merely want to remind you that we don't know who reads our blog and what their intentions may be so just be mindful of the type of info you include in your posts. Don't forget also to remind your kids that we would never send anyone they didn't know to pick them up from school etc, regardless of the fact that they can rattle off info about us and appear to be a friend.

Sorry again for the grimness of this post, I just want everyone to be safe.
xx

I'm excited!

Australians all let us rejoice because one of my very favourite scrappers, Karen Grunberg (aka karenika), is teaching a Finding Your Way class over at Big Pictures Classes. The class aims to help find your style, a style particular to you, that you are comfortable doing and will be happy with the end result.

I am in desperate need of this class as I don't have my own style. I flick and change depending what challenge I am doing or what photo I am scrapping. I would dearly love to have a definitive style - one like Ebony Van Der Starre, Georgia Keays, Fran Tynan, Emma Trout, Steph Devlin etc etc. I can look at any one of those girls LOs and instantly know who it belongs to, even from a small thumbnail. I want to do that too!

The class starts at the end of Feb and runs for 8 weeks. $40 AUD well spent I think. Can't wait!

Water Baby

I adore this pic of Molly in our pool. She just looks so happy and content in the water. I scrapped this pic for this months challenge at Scrap the Girls - complete a LO based on favourite summer memories. This is definitely one of them for me. TFL.

Old School Kraft

Just finished my LO for KIU this month - to create a summer LO and use a summer word in the title.

I wanted to scrap these pics of The Leeuwin taken at the end of 2010. I bought my mum and dad a twilight cruise on the vessel for christmas and we headed down to watch them take off.

I wanted to scrap a few pics and in doing so I feel as though I have returned to old style scrapping. I dont mind though because I still find that some of the LO's that really appeal to me are "old style".

i GOT PICKY...........

I decided I would have a go at the latest Get Picky Inspiration #3 challenge. The idea is to create a Chrissie LO using this beautiful room as inspiration:

It's cosy isn't it!

So I used a couple of pics of Molly the night before the big day and dulled them down a little. The original pics are very orange from the lights on the tree. I used a patterned background in a cosy muted aqua shade to emulate the wallpaper and used the gold ornaments on the mantle piece as my complementary colour.

I added a Dusty Attic Christmas scroll which I painted in cream and sponged with gold and finished with a silver ribbon inspired by the gifts under the coffee table.

I must say that whilst doing this LO I desperately wanted to add a splash of something but this picture doesn't really lend itself to that. I think I am happy with the result though.



My Two Beach Babes

Just a quickie to post my latest LO produced using this Michelle Fowler sketch over at Show Us Your Stuff:

This sketch was perfect for a couple of my favourite beach snaps of S and Molly last week.

I have added a "My Vintage Blossom" button and also a doily which is posing as a starfish.

I have also pulled out the Fimo again and made myself a seagull (standing on one leg). You will be pleased to note that there were no problems with the baking procedure this time.

Anyway here it is..........

New Year Storyboard

Happy New Year! One of my resolutions for this year is to put each page in an album before I start the next. In preparation I spent an hour on NYE filing my LO's from 2010. I filled two albums and still have a heap left over. So that resolution needs to wait until I get around to buying a new album. I'm not liking my chances of keeping that one. Ho Hum.

On a brighter note I have just finished my first LO for 2011.  I was checking out the gorgeous Storyboard Kits and noticed Lisa had posted a challenge using this PageMaps sketch.

 I decided the sketch was perfect for these pics taken at Molly's frst birthday party. I intend to cover the event over several LO's so I was really glad to get started. The LO is quite a bit more girly than I am used to but I don't mind it all the same.