The Nine Of Us

at nine minutes and nine seconds past nine o'clock on the 9th day of the 9th Month in the year two thousand and nine.
Just had to do it!
We had time for one take. This is it.

Happy Birthday Kelly

Even as it was, we celebrated Kelly's birthday a few days late. Kelly was in NZ with friends and she was sick on her birthday :( so we took the opportunity of her visit, her health and the proximity of the time to her birthday as a really good excuse to have a cake and sing Happy Birthday to her. That was in July.

Finally, I have scrapbooked the photo using Ngaire's class at CPR as the catalyst to get it done.


Whaddayareckon?
It's different. It's fun. Especially the beading. Oh yeah! That was fun!
And the heart in the window thingy - that was done by Peg. Thanks Peg. :)

Best Dad Ever!

Yes. I have the best Dad ever! Happy Father's day, Dad. Hope you enjoy that little book I gave you.


And my kids have the best Dad ever! This is the prize ribbon that Susannah made on behalf of the kids using the wet and scrunch method (thanks Jill!)

Update:
Here's a photo for ya.


Lately, Reuben has been creating with a video camera and the software that comes with it. Below is his Father's Day gift to his Dad. So cute!!!



In the words of Paul in Galatians 1:3-5,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

An Oldie but a Goodie

I had planned to use this photo for the layout class that Jill taught at the CPR...


...just to make sure that the boys didn't feel unequally treated with my scrapbooking attention. It would've been perfect if I could've run a few PhotoShop actions over it, toned it down, mussed it up a bit, or even made it black and white. But no. I couldn't.

It just so happened that I bunged into my stuff a few photos that were just sitting on my desk. And it also just so happened that one of those photos was just right. So a photo of Sophie-Lee circa 2006 did the job. I've already scrapped it before, BB (Before Blogging). See?


Remember the A to Z album competition?

Hennyway.
Here is how it fits into this technique-filled layout designed and taught by the lovely Jilly GG.


Now can I just say that I lay awake for a little while in the middle of the night (full moon does that to me) and wrote a fabulously entertaining blog post in my head. Well this is not it! You knew that, right?!

But I was remembering Kerrin Quall. Do you remember Kerrin Quall? She was one of my first scrapbooking heroes. Besides Meredith Harmer and Maxine Hazebroek. Well, anyway, Kerrin said that buttons were for sewing onto things and I believed her and sewed my buttons on to layouts. And I spent hours doing wonderful hand stitching on layouts just like Kerrin did. Check out some of Kerrin's A.mazing hand stitched creations HERE.

Can you see where I'm heading? I'm over it. Mini Glue Dots do a great job. I decided to hang the hand stitching for this layout and just get it finished.

That being said. I think I might just add some hand stitching to some layouts soon. I do like the pasttime, and the finished look. Interesting, cos I just read that Jill thinks she might start doing some more hand stitching. Great minds.....

That's possibly where our creative similarity ends. Jill can look at a bunch of products and see the vast possibilities. I look at them and I'm stumped. I don't even think the stuff goes together. That's why Jill is on Design Teams and I do her classes!

Ok. Enough rambling.

Before I go. Here are some layouts with hand stitching goodness (read madness) bestowed upon them.









Hey look at this. I have scrapped this photo twice before!!!

Butterflies through the window

This was the first thing I did at the CPR. I bought it as a kit from Loretta Grayson from HERE and it was just the thing to get me into a creative mood - I just had to follow instructions. :) Which, as you can see, I did. And then some.

Now it is ready to hang on one of the many ill-placed hooks in this house. :)

I DO scrapbook occasionally!

Here's the evidence.

These are the two challenge layouts I did at the Country Paperarts Retreat a couple of weekends ago.


When I saw this quote "If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours." on the wall at the gym recently, I tucked it away in my mind for further reference. I think this cute smile from Declan newly missing a tooth (it was wobbly and was knocked out by a basket ball) was the perfect picture for the quote.

I just love the colours of Basic Grey Lime Rickey - which is what I mostly used for that layout.




The papers in this challenge pack were indeed challenging. They were mostly very bright. Check out THESE layouts for an idea of the colours. Somehow I picked the least bright pieces and managed to tone them all down with a whole lot of pinecone ink and now they ain't bright at all.

So there you go.

Found it and finished it.

I started this page at the beginning of August, journalled on it on the 13th August then went to finish it the other day and I couldn't find it. Even after a huge clean up of my art room!
It's for the Blue Bazaar Art Journal Challenge.
Hennyway. Caitlin had an idea where it might be and indeed it was there!
So now it is finished.
Inspired by Teesha Moore and her piece.
Here's mine.


I used a technique for journalling that I first heard about from Dina Wakley and I hadn't tried it before - Stream of Consciousness. Here's a definition I found here - "Stream of consciousness is a style of writing that is uninterrupted, unedited, and unstructured. Typically, a journaler approaches the blank page without intention--then simply waits for something to come." I didn't have to wait long :). I wrote it upside down (actually, I wrote it the right way but it is upside down on the page - I'm not that stupid!!!) cos I decided that it wasn't something to be read but rather just something for me to write.

Healthy Life Awards

I didn't know that filling in this Weight Watchers thing would end up the way it did so here I am with a profile page that you can vote for.

"The winner of the Peoples Choice Award will be flown to Sydney for the awards night, complete with wardrobe, make up and lots of great prizes!" How fun would that be?!

So check out my Healthy Life Awards Profile and apply your vote - if you want to - and even join in the fun yourself! :)

Sutherland2Surf

I just had a quick escape from the demands of life the other day and whipped up this Clean-&-Simple-Cathy-Z-style layout.


Actually inspired by this do-over layout by Cathy Zielski.

There's not much information on the layout, but that's fine. You don't need much information. If you want to see how I did you can check it out here - my bib number was 6013, if that helps.

The Pick of the Bunch

I was going to do another collage of the flowers from around the garden but then I decided that, seeing as a lot of them are the same as last month, I would show you the pick of the bunch. No pun intended :)

I'm not a huge fan of yellow flowers but this one is just so pretty. Don't you think?

If my encyclopoeadic memory serves me right, it's an azalea.


Speaking of "no pun intended".... I like this cartoon.