Stumbling Around the Net

Thanks to Ginger from The Small Moments I have a new addiction! Stumble Upon! You download this niffty little toolbar for free, you choose the topics you are interested in and start hitting the stumble button. It will find all sorts of neat sites for you.

I have found all sorts of interesting things...some very funny things....and some new sites that will come in handy for school.

I found this video this morning....
Xpock.com
How cute is that?

And then there are things like this... Ant City and this... Rally Trophy, this Storms and this Fat Fingers.

Be warned though...this whole stumbling thing is totally addictive.

Running on Empty

I know...I know...I've been a slack blogger again.


Work has been crazy lately...I am still trying to adjust to working a near full week..and the fact that I have two little boys that are constantly pushing the boundaries while I am there. I am coming home most afternoons and dragging myself through the motions of homework, dinners and bedtime routines before crashing myself not long after the kids. And yet still I am tired....go figure.


I spent some time scrapping this weekend. I decided to join in the cybercrop at Forever Always. Man their challenges were tough! I managed to get them all done though which was a miracle considering how damn tired I am.

The first challenge was to find a magazine....• Find an advert that inspires you and then scrap a page using that inspiration. You may like the layout, the colour scheme, or the wordage. • Use 3 different forms of type – this means your title & journaling needs to use 3 different forms of application as in chipboard, Rubons, computer, stickers, stamps or your handwriting.

This was the ad I used for inspiration:

And the layout I created from it:

The second challenge was a back to school type challenge. We had to remember our three R's and do the following...• Read – use your book title as either your title or in your journaling. • Writing - You must include some journaling on your page • Arithmetic – Include 1 Ring + 2 Ribbons + 3 Rub-ons = a completed challenge entry.

I'm not sure you can read the quote on this but it says..."She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilites. She is your witness who sees you at your worst and best and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press assistant, even your shrink. Some days, she is the reason you wish you were an only child. ~ Barbara Alpert. "


And lastly the third challenge....WOW...it was a sketch....a sketch for a round layout...I've never done one of these before but I really do like how it turned out. Not sure how I am going to display it yet...
Hopefully this week will be a little more organized and I can get some serious scrapping done.

Deck of Me Weeks 5 & 6

I got a little behind with my cards and week 5 totally slipped by without being scrapped. I am caught up now though.

Week 5's prompt was to use some use some ephemera from your week. I chose to use my printout from the library.

Week 6's prompt was love. I had just finished scrapping a LO using the same photo as I had on the card. And I so love the quote that I wanted to add it to my Deck of Me.

I hit a glitch with the little tin I brought to hold them...while it can hold a deck of unaltered cards these six cards can barely fit in now. So back to the drawing board. Maybe I could bribe someone into making me a funky little bag to hold them. (MUM????)

All Jumped Up on Love!

I seem to be doing lots of love LO's lately. LOL. Mostly for comps and such but it's certainly got me wishing that I had better snaps of our wedding that weren't in a fancy album.

This first LO is for the Scrap Idol comp at my LSS.

I have always loved this photo of Crocket. It was taken when we were still dating (a lot of years ago now!). I took inspiration for this layout from a layout by Ngaire.

This next LO was done for Forever Always's Valentines Day challenge. You had to scraplift a LO from their gallery, and do it using red,black and white. Oh...it also had to be based on love.

I really enjoyed using these older photos...but as I said it makes me wish I could go back and get better shots.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Boo,

Eight years ago you came into our lives and changed it so that we cannot image a day without you. You fill our days with so much emotion...from pleasure and pride to anger and impatience. But most of all you fill our days with your presence.

It is hard to watching you grow up, knowing that as each stage passes this is the last time your dad and I will have to deal with it. Each year we watch you change and you are showing all the characteristics and character of being a fine young woman. People always tell us how charming and funny you are, how beautiful you are and how compassionate you are...we are glad to hear these compliments...but we see them for ourselves every day. There are many minutes, hours, days, when you are a very difficult to live with...and at the moment your constant whine is driving us to distraction. I guess this is to be expected when you are always fighting for the same rights as your older sister. Your emotions are always "up front", both the good and the bad. They always will be. That is who you are.

You have a wonderful quality of independence that we value and respect. You recently took your first flight with Lolly to Melbourne to visit with Grandma and Grandad...you were totally fearless. I cannot imagine your sister doing the same thing at that age. We see you gaining more and more independence each day and while this makes us proud it saddens us a little.

You have some wonderful qualities that those of us who love you have seen since you were a baby. Last year you befriende a new little boy in your class who was having a hard time settling in. His name is Harley and he had just move interstate and didn't know anyone. You were his friend in class; you stopped to help him and to talk to him and made first few weeks at a new school happier because he could count on you to seek him out and play. Your teacher, Mrs. Reardon, told me about this and said that she could always count on you to help out the kids that were feeling left out. Eventually we all learn to read and write and drive and cook and hold a job, but we cannot "learn" a good heart....and Boo you have a seriously good heart.

So today is special, and you are special. Not just because you are our daughter, but because you are a unique individual and one that we respect and enjoy being with. You have unusual taste, but you have lots of it. And you are tenacious when you want something and you usually end up getting exactly whatever it is you were wanting. Lately we have seen your love of art grow. And you are more often than not seen with a sketch pad and pencil in hand. You draw the most amazing pictures and we hope that you continue to foster this love of drawing and painting. As a young person you have figured out how to talk to people...you are instinctive in your "people skills".

All these qualities are sometimes covered over by anger and shouting and frustration and impulse, but as you grow you will get more control and you will learn to channel those emotions more productively.

So today as we reflect on where the past eight years have gone we want you to go forward... to make this world a better place for yourself..and t0 remember those who love you will be following right behind you. And we always will.

Love, Mum and Dad

P.S. It was the wonderchilds birthday yesterday...I got caught up in birthday cake baking yesterday morning and didn't get a chance to post it!

Working Like a Grown Up

Well I finaly got all my hours through, and I guess that now I have to work like a "grown up" and go more than 3 days a week. The timetable is pretty full on too...no down time in the library this year. I will spend all day Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and Wednesday afternoons with my two little buddies. And all day Friday doing library lessons for the junior stage classes....imagine it....4 classes doing the same activity over and over and over and over.

This will be the first time in 12 years that I have worked these sorts of hours. Talk about a shock to the system. LOL

WAAAAA!

Wanting to scrap....needing to scrap....can't see my damn desk! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I NEED HELP!

One of my new little guys at school has very poor fine motor skills, and I am after some ideas on very quick activities I can do with him. I've got playdough and threading, but this little fella isn't big on art or writing.

If anyone can help with some ideas please, please, please leave a comment for me.

A Letter To Lolly

About a year ago I started scrapping pages for a special album for Lolly. This album is for when she is a few years older and going through the dreaded teen years. I am scrapping things I want her to remember...things she doesn't always want to listen to right now, with the hope that when she is feeling that the world is against here that she will see how much she is loved. After her accident last year I wrote what was to be the first of (I hope) many letters to Lolly...these I am including on my scrapping pages.

This weekend I scrapped another letter for Lolly. This one is about the things she has taught me over the years. Here is the LO:

This is the letter that makes up the journalling on the page:

Someday, when you are older, you may not remember the time we spent together before you went off to school. But still I want to help you remember how much that time meant to me.

You taught me how to be a kid again: I knew all of the children’s songs and I really liked singing your favorite, “Rock-A-Bye-Your-Bear”, with you. I learned to dance, and I became an expert at the “hokey-pokey” and the “little tea pot”. We learnt together how many Lego’s you can stack up before they come crashing down. We learnt that ever though play dough can smell so good, you still can’t eat it, and that crayons are only meant for paper not walls. We’ve learnt that it’s best not to giggle when playing hide and go seek. We became friends with The Wiggles, The Hooley Dooley, Thomas the Tank Engine and the entire cast of Play School. We knew all the names of the dogs and cats that Hairy McClairy from Donaldson’s Dairy was friends with. We learnt what bees eat for dinner, where the moon goes during the day, and that blowing bubbles is fun but bubble mix tastes disgusting. We’ve learnt that painting with fingers is so much more fun than using a brush and that laying on the trampoline snuggling is just as much fun as bouncing.

We learned how fun it is to sit quietly and cuddle and kiss on the lounge after waking from a nap. I’ve learned that kisses work way better than Band-Aids any day. I’ve also learned what it feels like to be loved like only a child can love, and I’ve learned that it’s one of the best feelings in the world. I’ve learned how fast you are growing and changing, just like that caterpillar we kept that time that quickly became a chrysalis and then, magically turned into a beautiful butterfly.

But most importantly, I’ve learned how wonderfully unique you are, and how special you are to me. As you now start your last year of primary school I want you to remember that although you may not always remember that time of your life, I will always remember it for you.

Lots of Layouts

I know I have been a very slack blogger this month...but my head is buzzing with scrapping ideas, renovations, and planning how best to deal with my two little buddies at school. I am hoping that things settle down soon though, I feel I am coping well at the moment and not stressing too much. I guess that is a good sign as to how I am coping with my battle against the depression, normally I would be a mess by now.

As I promised the other day..I am going to share the LO's I've recently completed. I've been on a scrapping roll at the moment, scrapping most days or sketching out ideas or taking photos other days.

Lets start with these:

These will eventually go together to make a little wooden circle album for me. At the moment though they are hanging in the window of my local scrap shop Scraps to Share at Brassal, as part of their Scrap Idol competition. I wanted to make them very girly and once done I will tie them all together with some ribbon and attach it to my work bag.

Chookscraps Survivor is back up and running again. We are down to the final six...though after this weeks challenge we might not have any. LOL. They are likely to throw up their hands and run screaming from the island at the very thought of it. I know when the design team first starting tossing ideas about I chuckled and though "Thank god I'm not in Survivor anymore...thats just to much of a challenge" Then I realised I had to do it anyways. ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!! The theme: My Town. Easy enough right...yeah. The challenge: The whole LO has to come in under $10!! That includes a handmade frame for one of the three photos you must use. This is what I came up with:
We have started a new competition over at Chookscraps. Right Here, Right Now! Its a chance to scrapbook life in 2007...to show future generations. You get points for the size of the LO and what techniques & elements you use on a page.

I doubled up on my LO's scrapping these next two for the Right Here, Right Now and for ScrapTherapys first ever cybercrop!

I have more LO's to share...but they can wait till another time.

My Deck of Me - Week 4

If you are following along with Emily's challenge you will know that this weeks prompt was to scrap a "symbol" that means something to you. I chose a love heart as my symbol.

This week I painted the card then embossed the edges of the card and the heart. I cut out the center of the heart and then backed it with painted transparency paper. I stitched the title on before backing it with the patterned paper for journalling.

I really like how this turned out...it's a little different than I would normally do, but that was part of my bigger picture for these cards. I finally found a little tin to keep my cards in, and hopefully this week I will get around to altering it...once that's done I'll upload it.

Bad Blogger...bad, bad blogger!

Oh I have been a bad blogger...lots of things have been happening around here and I've not made a single post in over a week. I've just been so BLAH this past week and I really have no reason to be. So let me give you an update and I promise I'll post later about the scrapping side of things.

The bank approved the refinancing of our house so we set out on the long and tedious task of looking for a car and haggling with used car salesmen. Man some of those guys are just plain rude! One of them gave us this huge sob story about how he really liked to sell cars at this time of month to clear the yard ready for the next one...but then he only wanted to give us what amounted to $500 for our old car (this was after on roads and stuff). Another when I called to enquire about a car included the F-word about 6 times in a five minute conversation...now I'm no prude and I use this word myself...but there is a time and place...and when you are on the phone to a prospective client it is neither the time nor the place.

We finally found exactly what we were looking for at exactly the right price. So last Saturday we went over to Strathpine to check it out...it turns out it had all the extras we'd talked about putting in the new car...and it was a real bargain. So we paid the cash, organized our insurance over the phone and drove home in this....

Tuesday saw the girls back at school...but yours truly managed to get another weeks holidays. I have a few hours this year, I'm back in the library for a few hours and I have my little buddy L again for 8 hours. I am waiting on some extra funding for another little guy who proved himself a real handful last year...hopefully that will come though sometime this week and I can start on the challenge of N. I love this one on one time with these kids, even the smallest progress is rewarding. I felt so special when I walked in with the girls on Tuesday and L came running up to me to drag me over to see his new baby brother...he seems to have grown a lot emotionally over the break.