Why the purple gloves?

For many many years now, I have worn gloves to do just about everything. It all started when I used to get splits on the ends of my fingers and thumbs and under my nails - very painful and best avoided if one knows how.

I started off by wearing rubber gloves to do the washing up. Later on, in a period of my life when I suffered a tad with OCD, I wore rubber gloves to protect my hands from germs.

I have now progressed. I wear latex-free gloves (I worked out that rubber makes me sneeze and my face itchy) mostly for the convenience of not getting my hands dirty. When the phone rings, or one of the kids needs a hand (or hug) I can just whip off the gloves and deal with the situation at hand :)

I wear my purple gloves for washing up, wiping down the kitchen, anything that involves water, chopping up meat, chopping up choko (can't stand the feel of that stuff even though it is good to eat), emptying the soaking bucket, washing the car, cleaning the barbecue, gardening, vacuuming and dusting. There's probably more but I can't think of them at the moment. Oh yes! Painting. I also wear the disposable latex-free gloves while I am scrapbooking for inking and painting and other things that might get my hands dirty!

Anyway. The Weekend Workout challenge at Scrapapple is called "Two's A Pair". I have been wanting to do a layout about me wearing 'rubber' gloves for a while, having been inspired by Nic Howard's book "That's Life". So here it is - two gloves, two strips of paper, two ribbons, two jewel brads.



Products: Bazzill; Making Memories Ribbon Damask Pewter Heritage Collection; Ribbon from Scrapapple; Bella Jewel Bradz; Uniball Gel Grip Pen; Derwent Inktense.

PS A very special thank you to DH for taking the photo, cropping and adjusting and printing it out. 'twas very, very helpful. :)

Renae, you've been scraplifted!

I love the way Renae comes up with new and interesting ways to use her markers, gel pens and wathercolour pencils. So I totally scraplifted Nae - You can see her layout here.

Here's what I did.


Nae and I had the biggest laugh when we were talking about the Six Word Memoirs, trying to say everything in six word sentences. So I applied the six word restriction to the title and subtitle - just for a laugh :)

Products: Bazzill; Making Memories Acrylic Paint; Pens - Zig Writer, Uniball Gel Pens, Slick Writer, Tombow ABT; Tinkering Ink Perfectly Posh Diecut Alphabet; Love Elsie Rubons Betty; Basic Grey Sultry Fandango; Prima Press N Petals; Brads.

In case you didn't notice...

... it snowed last night!!!

I never cease to get super excited about snow. I love it.

I am SO glad I looked out the window and noticed that the cars were covered in snow otherwise I wouldn't have known that it snowed. I do regret not making a snowman last night, though. Oh well. This photo will have to suffice.


May 17th is definitely the earliest I have known it to snow in my 20 years of living here.

Fave Photos

Renae and I headed to Alma Park with the kids for a bit of fun. Fun for Nae cos this was the first time she had been to Uralla's award winning park and fun for me cos I was trying out my new (well, new to me) 85mm f/1.2L II lens.

Using the lens was a bit like changing from driving a manual to an automatic - you know how you keep reaching for the gear stick and putting your foot on the brake thinking it's the clutch? This lens doesn't have a zoom but I kept trying to make it zoom!!!

Here is a collage of my fave first photos with this lens. Hint: If you click on the collage you can see a bigger version of it :)

Catching Up

On Friday before Reuben's birthday party we (that is the people who are part of AHEG and just happened to be coming to Reuben's party) made paper! Fay had the pulp all ready so we made a date for this fun event. Kim whipped up some pulp as well and brought it along. A collection of paper recycling kits and quite a few plastic sheets went a long way to producing lots of colourful hand-made paper. Do you know how easy it is to make paper? Easy Peasy!!!

Here is a simple 6x12 layout actually the paper that we made. 'twas fun :)


The kids are now writing letters, creating more art, and making cards with their paper.

And now Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is not my favourite day of the year and it is my fault. I don't want Mother's Day to be a 'getting' type event. In fact I'd like to think that I don't care about Mother's day at all (for myself, that is) but I found out that I actually do, a bit. I care about it because I want my children to be part of the whole present experience - thinking ahead, making something special, giving without expecting anything in return, the surprise and all that. I love giving gifts - I don't like getting them much.

Hennyway.
The Scrapboxx weekly challenge is to to a layout about mothers - in some way. I took this photo on Mother's Day and tried to do a positive layout about Mother's Day. This is what it looks like.


Products: Fancy Pants Bouquet; Creative Imaginations Narratives pp and Stickers; Cosmo Cricket Lucky; Rusty Pickle Mayflower; Thickers; Li'l Davis RickRack; Ribbons- SEI and K&Co?; Heidi Swapp XL Brads; Tim Holtz Grungeboard; Reeves and Making Memories Paint; Dymo.

6x12 Layouts

I had a little spree of creating 6x12 layouts this weekend. It was nice to work with a different size.

For Reuben's birthday we had a fancy dress theme and a bonfire to top it all off. I built the best bonfire ever - it started with one match! And it was just the right size for heat, good looks and not going on for days.

I wanted to build a fire that would start easily. I looked up How To Build A Bonfire to confirm what I already knew - that you need the right fuel and airflow. This is what it looked like in broad daylight.



And here's a 6x12 layout of the event.



And another one of the girls in their long dresses with sparklers - it looks like some special ceremony! But it's not :)



There's a challenge over at Scrapboxx that I thought I would do - well some of it anyway. Leeann challenged us to use 4 or more old photos on a layout with torn paper and stitching. She gave us a sample which I found very inspiring - so much so that I scraplifted it. I didn't use old photos and I didn't do stitching - there's always one in the class!

A layout about Hudson. He says 'either' (pron. eever) instead of 'as well' or 'too'. When he was talking to Daddy on the phone he said "I love you either". I just wanted to capture that cute moment. Here Hudson is talking to Grandad and Grandma on his birthday. So cute!



That's all for now.

Ten Today

Happy Birthday Reuben!

Four Today!

Happy Birthday Hudson!

PS: You might have noticed that I have added a little thing at the bottom of my posts. It's a really quick way for you to say you've been and looked at my blog without leaving any of your details at all - for all of you guys with a little techno-paranoia. Try it - it's easy. No signing in or nuffin'. :)

Looking Ahead

When I received the Blue Bazaar Newsletter the other day I was instantly inspired by their challenges for the National Scrapbooking Day Cyber Crop.

I have been mulling on a layout about moving for quite some time now and it all came together in this layout for Blue Bazaar's Mixed Media challenge to use Pens/Markers in a project of my choice.

Here it is.


I have lived in at least 15 houses in three different countries over my life so far. I would've said I was a city girl but I have lived in the country for almost 20 years now, which is nearly half my life. The plan is that we are moving back to Sydney, God willing, in October. I am not really sure how I feel about that. Excited? Yes. Nervous? Definitely. I'm, seeing it as a challenge to move 20 years of stuff and 7 children and making the city my home again. I will certainly miss all my friends.

For the layout I used: ColorMates cardstock; Uniball Gel Pens in black, white, yellow, and orange; Zig Writer - Platimun and Zig Millennium Pen - Pure Black; Maya Road Fresh Chipboard Heart and Home and Noah Alphabet; and VersaCube Pinecone.

For the knowing of you...
Spot Sydney Tower, the cross on the hill in Uralla, our house, the washing line with 7 nappies on the line (representing the 7 children born in the country) and the autumn trees.

Let's see what's shakin' in the real world.

Or, if that is too cryptic for you...
Let's see what's happening at Aussie Scrap Music.

At last I can show you my first layout for ASM.


The challenge is to get a least three elements of inspiration from the filmclip, which is John Butler Trio Good Excuse.

So...
After playing with paint (the hint of colour in the filmclip) for the background, I then masked a couple of cogs. The spider web was inspired from my trip to Gostwyck with Renae and fitted with the contrast between the natural world and the manmade world in the film clip.

Of course black and white was fairly obvious in the clip - hence the photo (almost black and white!). And the border, which is an absolute feature of the clip, I have just lightly stamped with my new swirly stamps.

Have I covered it?

Ahhh! The journalling!

One day in March, Renae and I decided we would get up early, drive out to Gostwyck, go for a walk, and then take photos of the sunrise. It was very foggy so Renae drove slowly so that we got there in one piece. We headed off for a walk waiting for the sun to come up. The fog banked up on the horizon and blocked any goodlooking opportunities. So instead of colourful sunrise photos we took photos of spider webs - the jewels of the morning - and each other. Then we drove home, being able to see clearly where we were going!!! It was worth the effort and a lot of fun - so we decided to do it again another day.

PS: There's quite a bit to be read between the lines that Renae and I will chuckle about for a while to come, eh Renae?!?! :)

Products used: ColorMates Cardstock; Making Memories Acryclic Paint; Inque Boutique See D's Savoir Faire Stamps; Brilliance Ink; American Crafts Memory Marker; Kaiser Craft Rhinestones.