Out and About

On Saturday, Andrew and I went for a drive to Cromwell, to check out the Classic Car Show. Not my thing, but Andrew wanted to go, and it made a nice change to staying home.

Cody was busy practising his latest pursuit...speed water skiing, yes I am feeling a little worried about this!

Aimee was hard at work at The Restaurant in Kurow.

Camden was camping with friends around the lake.

We enjoyed our outing, even the cars were okay for a short while. We visited the Fruit shop, had a lovely fresh fruit Sunday and stopped off at the lake on our way home for a chat and barbecue tea with friends.

The sun shone all day, it was super hot, makes a change!

Circle Journal

Thank you Cherie for completing your page in my circle journal and sending it home, in fact a BIG thank you to Sue, Amanda, Dianne and Carol as well, my journal looks great.
The idea of a circle journal is that you send away a book with blank pages! Your book is sent on from one person to the next, each of these people full in a page, or in this case two pages of your book and once the book has been around everyone...(done the full circle) it comes back to you, looking wonderful, as mine has done. Take a look for your self.....

This is my cover, completed by myself... the theme for my journal is 'Hand Made'

After my cover I have an introduction page just to let people know the idea behind my theme, and to pass on a few simple instructions...
here is another page I completed, just as an extra and because I wanted to!

My sister and I were encouraged to create from an early age thanks to our wonderful grandmother, I'm the child on the left, with my head down and concentrating hard, my sister is taking the whole exercise with a lot less seriousness and looks to be thoroughly enjoying herself.

Once you have completed your cover and introduction page you then get your album/journal started by completing the first page, or double page in this case.

This is mine...

I have recorded instructions for Rusty paper, handed on to me by a very talented lady by the name of Kristy Both of my pages use handmade rusty paper.

Sue was the first person in my circle of friends to receive and complete pages in my journal Check out that precious golden daffodil...

...complete with instructions

Spiral bracelet is the handmade treasure Amanda has based her page on.

Amanda has kindly made a bracelet for my page, and once again there are instructions so I can make these as well. Aimee has already made one following Amanda's instructions, and it looks great.

More jewellery ideas from Dianne. This page shows how to Bead Crochet.

I had to include a close-up shot for this one so you can see it clearly

I love the handmade flower embellishment as well Dianne.

Now, Cherie struggled with an idea for her page, but she has totally nailed it with this scrumptious recipe and....

this gorgeous page that has a hand made transparency of her mum, who is the 'owner' of the Lemon Cheese cake recipe.

Carol was apologising for her page not being "very good"...but it is very very good and I love Blueberry Muffins

Check out those tiny cutlery pieces and the flowers created from tiny beads

The only thing wrong with my journal is that it ends here....

...I didn't want it to end!!

Thanks again to you all for a totally top effort. My circle journal is very precious and I will be tyring out all of your wonderful hand made items. You are indeed all, an inspiration to me.

This Circle Journal swap I took part in was organised through Scrapbooking by Design

Check out The Art Room to see some photos of the other ladies journals.

Bonnie on canvas

Today, at long last I have finished a painting of our dearly loved, old, now departed Bonnie. I began this painting quite some time ago and just never had the urge to finish it. This is my first ever attempt at painting a dog, so it's not great, I can see that painting dogs is not one of my stronger points! Here's the real Bonnie, we had the pleasure of her company for thirteen years and she will be forever in my heart, even if she does not make the wall!!

Update

Hi there. First,I have to say that I am both amazed and surprised to discover that Ingvild visits my blog! Ingvild has the most wonderful blogs and osses talent, her blog and crafts never stop to amaze and delight me, if you haven't seen her work yet then check it out HERE

Today Andrew, Camden and I went to see the movie Avatar, and while the story line was not really my thing, I was mesmerised by the whole movie and its clever special effects, well worth going to see, not for the faint hearted though. I had to cover my eyes in a few place!!

Tomorrow I promise to post some 'crafty photos' I have received my circle journal back and it is awesome, I love every page, so stay posted for snaps tomorrow! In the mean time here are a few snaps on the latest happenings from our house...

We are very proud of Aimee who passed her NCEA and is now headed for the university of Physical Education, starting next month. Last week we went to Dunedin to check out where our girl will be living next year and much to Aimee's horror I lined her up at the gate so I could take this photo....

Camden has been putting in ten hour days at work these holidays, he was not at all obliging when it come to posing for a photo, I did however sneak these shots when I dropped him to work one morning...here he is fulling up his work truck with petrol....(no he does not have a licence yet, and i was a little horrified when .....

.... he leapt into the truck and headed off along this main stretch of road!!!!......

Camden has decided that he would not like to be a full time Dairy farm worker, so I'm hoping that the work experience will be enough to encourage him to work hard at school this year!

Time to get into that bed on the floor again, I have a very sore neck today and am feeling a bit tired after an unsettled sleep last night, I am showing my age I guess!!

For the next few nights Andrew and I are camping out...in our bed room, check this out....
We don't usually sleep on the floor! Our bed is one that can be tilted, raised, lowered etc, so I am able to get Andrew sorted with as much ease as possible, but last week our bed would not un-tilt, It was stuck in a major tilt, the head end was up and the foot end was down so much so that Andrew slid off the bed end, just like you would on a slide!! Today our bed was taken away to Dunedin to undergo major repairs, hence the reason why we are going to be sleeping on the floor for the next few nights. As you can see Oliver (our wee dog) is very happy about the whole situation!

Bruce is getting around

Thought it about time I did an update on Bruce Almighty...yes he still lives here, with the budgies.

These days Bruce ventures out into the big wide world, although he does not go out of site. Yesterday Bruce and I gardened together.

I pulled weeds and Bruce grabbed, and gobbled up all the creepy crawlies he could.

I watered the garden and Bruce played in the puddles and under the sprinkler.

If I moved to a different part of the garden then Bruce moved to, some times flying along beside me, but usually he just trotted behind.

Bruce is a bit of a worry. A couple of days our wee dog Millie watched through the wire netting while I fed Bruce, which is usual. What was different about this day was that Bruce took a look at Millie, popped down off his log and wandered out of the aviary door where he stood looking up at Millie!!

Silly Bruce almost lost his life!! I lunged at Millie just as she lunged at Bruce, I was faster...Millie is even rounder and more unfit than I am!

As I lifted Millie up in my firm grip Bruce jumped up onto our other wee dogs back, lucky for Bruce Oliver is an old dog and looked unimpressed by the situation, but he just carried on following Millie and I inside., Bruce and all!

I could write a book on Bruce, but for now, I thought you may like a look at these photos I snapped today.

Photo fun anyone??

Check out my calender HERE!!

Louise introduced this fun site to me on Face book yesterday, I love taking photos but just don't seem to get my camera out with out a reason, so I have decided to take up the challenge.


Check out 365 project for yourself.

This is the photo I took today, while I was out weeding my garden.

That orange Livingston daisy looks a little out of place among the pinks.

This is yesterdays photo...but shhh..., don't tell, I took it today! I wanted to full in the blanks on my calender and now that I'm all caught up I will try very hard to take my photo of the day on the actual day!!
This is Millie hiding from the hot sun.

Christmas joy

This year I managed to make my own Christmas cards, an improvement on last year! Below is a peek at a few of them, there is nothing too fancy as I was determind to make them all and as always I put off making them until it was almost too late!

Take a look at two of the very precious gifts I received this Christmas from the talented Sandra Aston. First there is this glorious tiny plum pudding decoration. Next year this will take pride of place on our Christmas tree. There were many goodies in the parcel from Sandra, everything from scrapbook embellishments to a hand embellished tea towel and this delightful fairy, complete with her bag of treasure and a poem that reads...

A Fairy's Treasure....

A Star : to wish upon

A Flower and Butterfly : to remind you where I live

Some treasure: from times past

A Heart : to remind you someone loves you

A Tiny pair of wings : so you too can fly

Some Crystals : to bring you luck

Fairy Lights: to light up your life.

Thank you Sandra, its always a thrill to receive handmade gifts. You are such an inspiration, maybe next year I will make my own cards AND some gifts...no promises though!

Christmas Containers

Look at the wonderful altered tin I received from Debbie, over at Glamour girls. This was the result of an altered container swap I took part in just before Christmas

Glamour girls is an online forum, in which you can join swaps with a small group of friendly, wonderful ladies. Be sure to check this site out. If you have any cool swap ideas we would love to hear from you. Be sure to pop into the gallery and take a look at the wonderful crafty things we create. Glamour girls will get you thinking outside the square. Keep a look out for new swaps coming up in the new year. Check out the tutorials here. And last but not even close to least check out the goodies available through the on-line shop. There really is something for everyone crafty!

This is what my tin looks like on the inside

Here is a close up of the tiny tag book Debbie has created...

This is my altered container

I paper mached over the top of a plastic container, then painted it, and added embellishments.

The little angel come all the way from Germany, from my dear friend Renate.

Happy Creating everyone and HAPPY NEW YEAR