50th Birthday Party*

About 3 years ago I had an idea - have a big birthday celebration for my 50th birthday. I had ideas for a theme - wigs and wellies, a colour scheme or even complete fancy dress.

Finally my 50th birthday came into plan-able sight. Annelise and I started talking about the logistics last year. With help from family and friends and a few logistical upsets - moving house, being on a waiting list for an operation that was likely to land on my birthday - the party eventuated.

I would have really loved everyone to wear pink and I would've been as chilled as the pink champagne a lovely friend toasted me with but pink is not everyone's colour so I settled for black and white with a dash of pink if anyone wanted.

Pink Champagne. Cheers!

The party guests started arriving at 2.30 in the arvo  Some wore black and white, some wore pink . One added a pink bandanna, another a pink scarf. Dad had a pink face-washer hanging from his belt! And then there were some who didn't read the invitation at all - they came in whatever colour took their fancy. :)

Dad with his pink accessory.

If you think that having 83 guests arriving at any time, and not knowing when, between 2.30 and midnight is a bit tricky then try feeding them. It happened, with a little help from our friends, almost smoothly - I totally forgot to buy bread rolls and I forgot to put out the lollies (not a great loss) after dinner. So, we started with nibblies, then we fired up the barbecue for dinner (bring your own meat) with scrumptious salads, followed by desserts and birthday cake. My gluten-free dairy-free birthday cake failed the first time, the second one baked that morning and a success, sat on the kitchen counter under a tea-towel, un-iced, until about 7.30 when Caitlin and a few other helpers decorated it.

Cake by Caitlin.

Eventually, whoever was around at the time sang/sung (help me!) happy birthday to me and I blew out the "50" candle that we had saved from my Mum and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary celebration cake - little does Chris know how he contributed to my 50th birthday celebration!

Did you notice the black frame? I had a photo with all of my guests (not at the same time) in the frame. It was a nice idea and we got some lovely photos. But there were some a lot of duds as well and it would've been better to have a good photo and then add the frame digitally, in focus, in the right place than to have less than acceptable one-off photos of disappointing quality. Oh well. We live and learn.

Framed - Annelise, Moses and Alan with me.

We (Annelise and I) learnt a few things about the invitation too...
Keep the email short - make it easy for people to read it all.
Tell people to read the attachment - cos they might assume that the concise info on that is the same as in the email saga.
Make the font on the invitation simple - curls and scrolls make the address extra unusual.

My pink accessory.

So, all in all, I had a bonza birthday party. Now to plan my 60th birthday party!

Letter box for cards and contributions. Made by Annelise.

P.S. I'm writing this blog post on my new computer - my family and friends contributed so generously towards it instead of giving me 83 (or 35 - there were a lot of kids) very beautiful individual presents. I also got a lovely set of luggage from my sister, four gorgeous mugs from a friend, and a fabulous, health-giving plant from another friend. What more could I want?!

*Well, actually it was not my fiftieth birthday party. I can remember only a handful of birthday parties in my half century of life. This one was the best birthday party ever.

Birthday Catch Up

Guess whose birthday this is?
Can you tell by who is blowing out the candles? No!
Can you tell by the number of candles? Maybe.

This was the first time DH was at home on his birthday for a good few years. 

Guess whose birthday this is?

Can you tell by who is blowing out the candles? No!
Can you tell by the number of candles? Maybe.

Malachi celebrated his birthday in July. This was just a little acknowledgement that it actually was his birthday.

Guess whose birthday this is?

Can you tell by who is blowing out the candles? No!
Can you tell by the number of candles? Maybe.

Declan really wanted a wafer creation filled with marshmallows. That's what he got! Plus some.

I may or may not scrapbook these events. You'll just have to wait and see. :)

Last Year This Year

I've finished my first layout for this year - and it's of Christmas last year.

We had a lovely Christmas and this layout * just captures some of our happy Christmas moments**.


*Photographed as best as I could on my iPhone cos Soph has my camera to keep up with her photo-a-day while she is away.

** Including, but not only...
100 white balloons filled with helium,
going to the beach at 7.30 in the morning,
Christmas service at CBC,
a beautiful roast dinner,
yummy dessert,
swimming in the pool.
And best of all...
the people!

It's been a long time

One of the many sunset photos I have taken from our lounge room window.

I'm sorry to all my friends and followers who come and check out my blog wondering, hoping if there will be a new blog post to read.

Ok, well I've moved house, endured a bout of extreme pain and a hospital visit, enjoyed Christmas and New Year, unpacked my art room (mostly), and I've done a gazillion other things that fill up my already full life. Meanwhile (that is, in between all that and the gazillion other things), I have been writing blog posts in my head, taking photos with and without layouts in mind, and I have even started doing One Little Word 2012 with Ali Edwards at Big Picture Classes.

So, Happy New Year, and this is what you (and I) can look forward to...
Blog posts
Photos
Layouts
One Little Word instalments

But you are going to have to wait - I'm having surgery on Friday 13th (that's fine with me) and then, God willing, I will be back with some updates.

While you are waiting, I'd love it if you could leave me a message and say 'Hi'.

:D

30 Days of Joy and Thankfulness

At the end of October I thought about the times I have done a-photo-a-day and wondered if i could manage taking a photo a day in November. I decided that I couldn't.\
But then I saw Meredith's post about keeping a record of the things that bring/give her joy and I was inspired to do a similar  thing. So each day I will force myself to take a moment to record at least one thing that brings me joy or for which I am thankful.
So far so good.

Sketch Diary Update

I thought I had better upload these* before the fun of relocating internet services begins.

See the spiral thing? I was inspired by Hudson's doodling. He, then, was inspired by my doodling!!!

* I don't know why, when I select the photos in order, the photos upload in random order.

Sketch Diary

In the last few weeks I have had quite a few opportunities to sit and wait - doctor appointments, a hospital stay, and sitting outside the houses we were going to look at. These opportunities are dwindling and I am starting to feel the urge to scrapbook again. So here are the latest pages. Who knows? They might be the last for a while.

If you have been following the links to my inspiration you can probably work out who I am influenced by.

Martha Lever, Lori Vliegen, Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and lots of doodlers! And there's just a little bit of me in there as well. :)

Manga Belle

It has been a long time since an update. There is plenty that I could show you but I am choosing just one thing (in two parts).

Many weeks ago now I was inspired by a friend of mine to do a manga-type drawing. She didn't say "I think you should do a manga drawing." She was the inspiration.*

Manga Belle #1 - I coloured this one with watercolour paint.

Manga Belle #2 - I coloured this with Inktense watercolour pencils. I also lightly coloured the face.

Both of these pictures are rather large. Next time I will do something a bit smaller and have a go at using coloured pencils and a blending stump.

*My model really did have this coloured hair. It is a really fun colour and suits her tremendously.

PS I was working from a rather poor, quickly snapped photo of my model. One day I'd love to do a proper photo shoot. hint hint :)

More Sketch Diary Pages

I saw this Op Art link the other day and knew I just had to try it, so while we were sitting around in hospital last week I drew around Hudson's hand with a pencil and started drawing my lines with a black pen. Isn't it cool?! I like the effect and will probably try it with all sorts of shapes. Actually, I might even get the kids to have a go too.

It is not often that I get to sit around with nothing much to do but lately it seems that it is becoming all too often. I wouldn't so much mind the opportunity to add to my sketch diary if it didn't include a broken arm or a flat tyre but that is the way it is. Can you tell I was inspired by the huge walls covered in wheels at the tyre place.

We went home between the x-ray and the appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon because I didn't want to kill the hour or so just sitting in the car. We got back to the doctor appointment about 5 minutes before time and then waited for an hour in the waiting room - another page in my journal well and truly done.

Where do you go for inspiration? If you ever need a little art class then check out shine brite zamorano - there is a wealth of inspiration at this blog.

Starting With a Blank Page

I love this.
http://www.this-page-intentionally-left-blank.org/
I have seen it in booklets before - normally government-produced booklets.
But that is not what I am writing about today.

What I am writing about is starting with a blank page in my art journal.
I have done a few art journalling classes and heard others talk about art journalling on blank pages.
For instance, Julie says that journalling on a blank page can be intimidating. That seems to be the general theme for many.
I love doing the ink splotches and the watercolour washes, I love scraping paint down and across the page with an old credit card, but in the end I don't know what to do with the page. I just realised today that I actually prefer to start on a blank page.

Even though my pages are not actually blank - an old diary - I treat them as blank pages. I am always to tempted to buy brand new art journals with lots of clean white pages - I love them. But I have such a huge supply of paper at home that I usually withstand the temptation and remind myself of my stash.

Right at the moment I am working through a gold-edged diary from 2009. Only 3 months to go and I will be moving on to my next journal. I haven't decided what it will be yet. I am thinking it should be my SMASH journal except that it doesn't have blank pages. Maybe I should pretend they are blank pages too - that will be tricky. Let's call it a challenge.

Lately I have been inspired most by...
Julie Fei-Fan Balzer - I love seeing all the wonderful things she puts up on her blog - Balzer Designs.
Lori Vliegen of elvie studio - I just love her lettering and watercolour fun.
and Martha Lever - her blog, Art du jour,  is full of inspiration - from watercolour painting, to journalling, to lettering, to acrylic painting and more.

So, do you like art journal on a fresh, clean, white, blank page or do you like to shabby the pages up a bit with ink and paint and texture and collage and stuff first?

Who inspires you?

PS: Those two pages there were done (mostly) while I was in hospital with Hudson. I was inspired by such pages as this, along with a bit of doodling, scripture and whatever.