Art Journal Challenge - Week 16

This week's challenge was - Get someone else to contribute. I gave the eldest two their own mini card and they got busy "scrapping".

C wanted to fill the whole card with a million embellishments and took about 1/2 an hour to do hers while N was finished in about 10 minutes.

I attached their cards to mine and made a little mini book with them all. Check it out!

Busy Weekend

Have had a busy weekend. Went and got some seedlings to get a vegie garden going. C loves olives so we decided to buy an olive tree. Mind you it takes about 5 to 7 years before it fruits. On Sunday morning she woke up and asked if she could check the tree for any olives. It's going to be a long 5 years! LOL! N is into carrots so we got him some seedlings. He only needs to wait 12 to 15 weeks. Although that waiting will probably kill him. We set the garden up right near the tank so we can water it from the tap that J set up. It is so great to have the garden again. We used to have a huge vegie patch at our old place and got so much enjoyment out of going out and picking veg to put into dinner that night. My Dad was a legend in the backyard vegie patch so I will no doubt be calling on him to give me tips on soil and pests etc.

Saturday night we went to a friends 30th birthday dinner at Fix! restaurant in the city. Beautiful food and a fun night. This is the card I made for Sarcha. Not too late a night though as I'm not quite up to dancing yet so we came home after dinner which was just as well. Within 1/2 an hour of getting home I was up at the Children's hospital with C - ear infection and croup!

Have put a couple of my fav pics from our holiday in Adelaide. Must get going on an album for the trip. In my spare time! Have a great Monday! xoxo

Pete's 60th Birthday

Sunday 15th was my FIL's 60th Birthday. He had a fun party for it with rellies and friends. Pete is such a great man, he works so hard and is very committed to everything he does. He loves his grandchildren dearly and they him. Here are some pics of a mini album (come card) I did for his birthday. Had to make do with what I had at home as not being able to race out to the LSS because of the surgery made it a little difficult. However, I was really pleased with it. We love you POP!

DT projects

Finally getting around to posting the pics of the April DT projects for Craftonline.Really loved the 7Gypsies Sorrento paper. It has such a lovely feel about it. Here I have used it on the MM small photo cubes which I absolutely love at the moment and are a fun little gift to give.

This is a layout I did also with the DT products. Love doing layouts with lots of journalling. I think it will mean so much in years to come to look back and read my thoughts.

Anyway, off to get some jobs done. It's never ending! xoxo

Week 15 - My Parents

Have had a very quiet week recovering but am starting to get frustrated with not being able to drive and lift the baby etc. Hopefully not for too much longer though. Just want to get back into everything!

Here is my take on this week's Deck of Me - the prompt for which is Parents. This was such a lovely theme. It's wonderful to take time out to think about your relationship with your parents. I was very lucky to have had such fantastic parents who raised all four of us to be strong and independent and instilled in us the importance of values and morals. I will be forever grateful to both Mum and Dad for everything they did and with Mum gone my Dad continues to support us and be there for us when we need him.

So here is my card for this week. Simple but meaningful. Enjoy! xoxo

Playing Catch Up

Getting back into the swing of things. Have managed to catch up on the Deck of Me challenge. Missed week 12 with being on Holidays in Adelaide. That week's prompt was "I believe...." My card is a copy of the Nicene Creed which is the creed we say in Church every Sunday. Quite often it is said just off the head without giving any thought to what it means but they are incredibly powerful words so it was great to take the time out to remember what my beliefs really are.

I was in hospital for Week 13 which the prompt was What's on your mind. So it was pretty easy to decide that Surgery was what was on my mind. Doing this challenge is so fantastic as I will be able to look back at this week and have a constant reminder of what was happening in my life at that time.

Finally brings me to this week's prompt which was Birds - Week 14. Took me a little while to think of this one but enjoyed doing it. It's so great to be back thinking creatively again. Yeah! Bring on next week!

Great Things Come to those who wait

Well, here I am Easter Sunday, finally getting around to posting. It has been a huge couple of weeks and the next few will be even bigger. I had surgery on my stomach on Monday so am in the middle of recovering which means no housework, no lifting, no driving, taking it easy etc. for the next 6 weeks. Easier said then done with a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 14 month old but....Dr's orders! So Easter was a little bit of a wipe out this year but the kids were still happy with what they got. We must have done about 10 Easter Egg Hunts. It was hide, find, hide, find, hide and find again and again.

We had a fantastic holiday in Adelaide with Uncle Scott and Michelle. They had planned so many great outings. The kids had a ball. Thanks guys! Can't wait to catch up at Christmas! Here are a couple of pics from the trip. See ya. xoxo

10 Years

Today is our ten year wedding anniversary. Here is a pic of the card I made for J. A bit of a rush job but he loved it. Ten years is such a milestone and something definately worth celebrating. We are hoping to celebrate later in the year with a trip for two to Sydney when Hayden is a little older. So today has been a little low key as we have been busy getting ready to go to Adelaide. The kids are very excited. Poor N couldn't get to sleep. He was worried about C not waking in time because she likes to have big sleeps. N was just beside himself when I told him he could come out of his room at 5am tomorrow - the rule for him is he has to stay in bed until 6am so this is a special treat.

I got H's haircut yesterday so he would look gorgeous when meeting Uncle Scott. It was such a disaster. I thought I'd done the right thing - I waited until he woke from a sleep. I had a bottle all made up for him and a treat ready for him. However, he screamed the whole time it was being done. I had to hold his head. The lady apologized for missing a couple of spots but gave up as he was too upset. Mind you, she still managed to charge me the full $12 for it. I had to laugh, as I was paying, the assistant came with the broom to sweep up the hair and jokingly asked the lady if she had cut any hair off. All in all a really great experience! Not!

Anyway, time to go. Still heaps of jobs to do. Will blog again soon! xoxo

Deck of Me Wk 11

Bit slower getting to this one this week. So much on, heading off on holidays on Friday, so trying to get everything done before hand is always a challenge but one well worth it!

The prompt for the challenge this week was "your initial". My initial thought (had to say it!) was to put words that start with the letter 'K' that describe me. However, it is a little difficult to find enough appropriate words starting with K. So here is my end result.

The journalling with the initial reads "Initial - occurring at the beginning. The first letter of a proper name. Can be of extra size or an ornamental character used at the beginning of a word or name...."

I used various stamp pad inks to "paint" the card and then wipe off to reveal colours underneath. One was a metallic ink so it has reflected in the flash making it difficult to see. Too busy to retake the shot so hopefully you get the idea. Had to leave my initial white as my name means Pure so it made sense to leave it blank which is surprisingly hard as sometimes you just want to cover or colour everything! xoxo

Field Trip

Fantastic Day! Had a field trip as part of the photography course this afternoon. It has got me all fired up and so excited about taking photos. We focused on portraits today which was fun. I am learning so much with this course and really loving discovering the techniques behind taking good photos. Here are some of the pics I took.

I love the one of Chanel. Can see a page coming up with this photo.

We also had to take a picture of this lady with the sun behind her. Amazing results - much harder than you think when everything is done manually.

Also managed to finish another canvas for C's room. Yeah! Two down, 3 to go! Here are the pics of the first two. Really happy with how they are looking! Well, that's my day! xoxo Almost forgot, finally settled on the unit at the coast yesterday! Yeah! Very excited about this as it is the family unit I grew up going to every holiday for years. So it has a lot of emotion attached to it and now we own it - very cool!

Emily Challenge - Week 10

Here is my take on the "Deck of Me" challenge. The prompt this week was "Note to self". I had to say "take time out to play" especially after N said to me yesterday that I haven't played 'brandy' with him for ages. So that is my 'mental note' this week, to 'play' more. Enjoy!

Birthday Boy

Wow, my big boy is 6. Yesterday was N's birthday. He was so excited - as you are at that age about your birthday. The day before he was telling everyone he was 6 and we said to him not until tomorrow. His reply was "I know, I'm just practising!" The day started early of course! He was very pleased with all his presents and I said to him "you're a lucky boy" he replied with "I'm more than lucky".

We picked up "the boys" from school and went to the park for a play before finishing the day at McDonald's. One of his friends had never been to McDonald's before and was so excited that you got a toy with your meal. How amazing is that!

N had so much fun. xoxo

Wk 9 - What inspires me

Here is my take on Week 9 of the Deck of Me Challenge. This weeks theme: Who or what inspires you! I had to think about this one for a while before getting started. I didn't pick one particular thing as I find everything and everyone in life can inspire you to some degree and in all different areas of your life. A child suffering from Leukemia yet still able to smile is inspiring to me, a song can be powerful and inspiring, nature is inspiring, love between two people or a whole family is inspiring, friendships are precious and inspiring......this list is endless. It really makes you think about the good things in life!

Here are a couple of pics from the International Women's Day Walk. Or the "Girl Walk" as C calls it. It was very hot and a huge crowd but a lot of fun. C was adamant that she wouldn't need the pram and managed to walk about 200 metres before asking to be carried. Great! I ran back to the car to get the stroller and when I got back we were last with no one in sight so I had to run a km to catch up with the rest of the 4000 people doing the race. Mind you by the time we'd caught up, the runners at the front were approaching the finish line. LOL!! C was just so excited about it all, even the 5am wake up call from me. She thanked me for waking her so she could do it. Very cute! xoxo