Butterfly from Annie

Can you imagine having a butterfly this beautiful sitting in your garden? Our butterfly's are beautiful, but kind of boring. This butterfly was sent to me from Annie, who is a very sweet lady who lives miles and miles away in Pittsboro. Annie has these butterfly's in her garden and thought I may like this one to use in my craft work. So thank you Annie, I have distracted your butterfly from its background and do intend to pop it onto one of my scrapbook pages soon.

You will find Annies website here, Annie is a very talenetd Herbalist.

Jewelry Challenge

I've just been visiting Carol, one of my lovely cyber friends.

Sadly I only visit via her blog though.

Carol has put a challenge out to us scrappers...to scrap up a storm using a piece of Jewelry and to link it to The Southern Girls Challenge Blog, so just for you Carol, here is my layout which show cases a precious broach handed down to me by my beautiful mum in law. (that's her in the photo)

...and here is the broach, I decided it was nicer here with Murial where it could be seen, rather than being hidden away in my draw!

Now check out the details, you do not have to create a layout, it can be a card or an off the page item. I must say there are many beautiful cards over at Southern Girls, and hope my page does not look too shabby besides them!

Now I challenge you all to take up this challenge as well, and let Carol know you are taking part as she is having a wee prize give away as well.

You can visit Carols Blog by clicking here

And Southern Girls Challenge Blog is here

Trash or Treasure??

Don't you hate it when the finishing touches to a lay-out go horribly wrong!

Yesterday I scrapped this photo of our daughter. Its not a great photo, but one that I made her line up for when we went to visit the Hall she was going to be staying in this year.

Aimee really did not think it was even a little bit 'cool' to be having her photo taken at the gate way to her new residence. I insisted that I would be needing this photo! Aimee's face pretty much tells me just how happy she was not about being the daughter of a scrapbooker!

My page was going okay. I tried out my Heritage Cricut cartridge and cut out the lovely street light, and based pretty much everything else around it.

...Then I added the journalling....BIG mistake...its all squashed in and almost falling off the page. YUCK, I was now hating my page and thinking about throwing it in my bin. I decided it was time to turn off my lights and go to bed.

Today, another look at my page confirmed that it was not at all looking good, but I turned on the tiny, creative thinking piece of my brain, ripped off the journalling swiped with an ink pad, added a few bits and pieces and come up with a result that I can cope with putting in Aimee's album....

The paper I have used is Webster pages - Your Life Beautiful, range
One of my favorite paper lines.
And Prima flowers, another all time favorite, especially the tiny roses!

Here is a close up of my street lamp. I popped a circle behind which i have painted with iridescent Jo Sonjas paint, and I backed the 'light' with perspex for added shine.

Thanks for looking.


Today has been super warm and sunny at our house. Andrew and I sprayed some of our weeds before the wind got up and forced us to abandon that mission until another day, and would you believe we got sun-burnt!

Due next week

....the latest issue of Up2scrap is due in the shops next week.

Congratulations to Dianne who has made the front cover with her gorgeous Baby Shower Journal

I got to work with lovely Creative Immagination's Papers, here's a wee peek at one of my layouts

There is a wee story behind the photo on this page. I had the words Grease Monkey to work with, now for 19+ years we have owned the Duntroon Garage, you would think his should have been an easy one to find a photo for! Not so!! I ended up grabbing youngest son, who happened to be at the garage at the time working on a Go-Cart with two of his good mates, and getting him to pose for me. His mates thought it was a great joke (although they were not keen to get in the photos along with Cam).
After taking several shots I returned home, sorted out the photo I wanted to work with, scrapped it up and felt quite pleased with my efforts...until Camden looked at the finished product and informed me that the goggles he was wearing in the photo were upside down!

Fingers crossed not too many people pick up on that when they flick through the mag!

Week 8 Kiwiana cutoff

Its sad when things come to an end. Midnight tonight sees the cut off date for week 8 of Scrapbook Outlets Kiwiana Competition. Everyone who has sored 100 points or more as of mid-night tonight will be sent a mystery product to do something with ...hmmmm ... ill say no more


But here is a sneak peek at my attempt with this mystery product...

...Want to see Ruth's sneak peek...check it out HERE

and if your after some inspiration for your next scrapbook page be sure to check out the gallery its loaded with gorgeous Layout at the moment!

Well today was my last day at work for two whole weeks, well eight days really considering I only work four days a week. I really need to hit my scrap room now as I have a load of work to get done.

I also hope to get some gardening in, but this past week has been super cold, so gardening will be on hold until spring shows its self!

Echo Park

Camden is booked in for Bull Riding school in Rangiora , so that's where we will be heading for a couple of days during the school holidays....and Ive two words to say on the subject...NOT HAPPY!

Here's a LO of Camden riding his Tin bull, which I must say is quite dangerous enough for my liking!

I guess one has to pursue ones dreams though!

The photos on my second page go back to 2006, when Bull Riding was not even a factor! Camden was happy just to slide down the elephant slide and sit on the wall by Humpy Dumpty

The papers used in these Layouts are called Echo Park - Sweet Summer time.

The whole collection of Echo Park products can be found HERE

I am in love with Echo Park papers at the moment!

A little bit of Sunshine

I have been scrapping with the lovely Echo Park papers.

I'm a big fan of layers

The blue scalloped edge is an Element sticker from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection.

My flowers are punched hearts that I have cut in half and curled then layered, and finished off with a touch of Kindy Glitz.
You can check out the entire Echo Park Sweet Summertime range...by clicking HERE

My Garden

I have had so many 'spam' comments on my posts lately that I have pass worded the comments section. Please still leave me a comment though :-)

Today I have been in the garden and weeded and dug my little vege garden.

Here is a before photo...I'm going to make myself document its progress...that way I will have to look after it and maybe I might even grow something we can eat!! Fingers crossed!

Wish me luck...I will be needing plenty!

Blog Candy

Tonight I have been having a wee blog hop and come across this gorgeous blog with a lovely 'blog candy' give away. To be in with a chance to win visit Feline Playful
Hope your all having a lovely weekend.

This morning Camden had to be in town and at school by 9am...I know ...its Saturday!! He had a Small Motors course to go to. Camden thought this finished at 12pm, so Andrew and I got our weekly groceries done and headed back to the school pick up Camden. Well, turns out the course wasn't going to finish until 3pm. So we waited until 3...then 4...then at last it finished at almost 5pm! So we had a very long wait. Nothing has been achieved at our house today. But tomorrow is another one, so who knows what that will bring. Hopefully some scrap time for me!

Echo Park

Echo Park- Sweet Summer Time is the brand of goodies in my Design Team box from last month, compliment's of Scrapbook Outlet. I am very behind with my scrap work at the moment, but I'm playing 'catch up' as fast as I'm able to.

Below is the first page I have created using this produced range.

Both Andrew, Cody and myself are looking very young in these photos.

More Echo Park papers are in the process of being scrapped.

Pop over to the Scrapbook Outlets blog to check out my instructions on how to add a little more life to your photos, quickly and simply. You will find them HERE

Its hard to believe we are up to week 6 of the Celebrate New Zealand competition over at Scrapbook Outlet. This week its my turn to post the challenge and kiwiana questions.
I must admit that week 6 come around very fast, and I was not at all organised, so I whipped up this lay-out at mid-night, the night before I had to post the challenge!

My page has that 'very quickly thrown together ' look about it!

I have used stamps to decorate my white background, added a little embossing

.... a few sprays of Glimmer mist, pearls, a handmade star, and a wee light house that come all the way from Germany (thank you Hannah).


The theme for this week is New Zealand songs, and the challenge is to use a NZ song title, or lyric from a song either in your title, or in your journalling. I have used Dave Dobyn of course, because he is my favorite NZ singer...I may be showing my age here!!

We have had a very wet afternoon here today, which was wonderful as it gave me an excuse to escape to my craft room and catch up on a little scrapping.

Tin Bull and Party

This weekend at our house was an interesting one, its never dull living here!
Our Camden has decided to be a Bull rider....I just want everyone to know that I do not approve at all! But it would seem that because he is 15 I cannot stop him! Cam has signed himself up for Bull riding School in October. In the mean time he spent the weekend making himself a bull to practise on. Here it is standing proudly on our back lawn....I'm not loving it yet!

Peace and quiet was not on the agenda this weekend. Aimee spent last week at home, mid semester break at uni (another one!) On Friday night she had a ...quote... "few friends around for drinks" Aimee is obviously not taking maths at uni because her 'few' meant 30 odd, 15 of whom stayed the night.
Here are two 'nice' photos that I picked up from her Face book page ...

...yep Boys can wear one'zes as well !!
Is it any wonder I'm going grey!!

My thoughts are with all of the people effected by the earthquake on Friday night, We sure felt the house rock here on Saturday morning, some of the girls who were sleeping here headed for cover under door frames, the boys didn't leave their sleeping bags!

Brights!

Just a quick post tonight to show you these wonderful bright Bo-Bunny Back to Backs papers that I have been working with for Scrapbook NZ.

Thanks for looking.