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

Merry christmas

Its hard to believe Christmas has been and gone and 2010 is just around the corner.
Christmas at our house had highs and lows, the high was that my sister and her family, from Auckland come to spend Christmas with us, the low was that our Dunedin nephew come down with pneumonia the week before Christmas, so him and his mum stayed in Dunedin for the day. We missed them both at the Christmas table.

My craft work , and blog,were both left behind in the week leading up to Christmas due to the fact that Christmas was to be at our house. I did manage to make place mats for the table though, using last years Chrissy photos. I made one for all of our diner guests as a small keepsake.
The digital elements mainly come from Louise's digital kits, some I downloaded from the internet, the Christmas hat come from HERE.

This is my finished place mat...

What a fine looking bunch we are! :-D

Christmas morning mayhem...opening the parcels...

(Above) My dad, Aimee and Camden.

We were lucky to have Dom,(below) Aimee's new best friend and Shenae, Cody's girlfriend join us latter in the day.
I have to say getting good Christmas photos is always a Battle!
...tring hard to be sensible...

Merry Christmas from Andrew and I. We hope you all had a wonderful christmas.

Flowers

Christmas is coming way too fast for me again this year! So much to do and so little time!
Action in my craft room has been pretty much null and void. Although I still have Christmas cards I need to make, gift tags for my parcels, a container to decorate for a swap at Glamour girls and there is my first assignment to be completed for Up2scrap. And life outside of my craft room is full on. Never mind I will do what I can and no doubt the world will not stop if I don't achieve everything!
Thought Id show you the wonderful handmade flowers I received from a swap I took part in over at Betterscrapbooking. Which reminds me, my time on the Design Team there is almost over. Its always sad when things come to an end, but I know Megan will have a talented team lined up for next year so watch this space ....... I sure will be!

(Click on the photos to see all of the wonderful detail close up)

Thanks to all the clever ladies who took part in this swap, I'm looking forward to creating pages using these gorgeous blooms in the new year.

Great Grandad's been scrapped

Earlier this year my uncle come for a visit and had some wonderful photos with him from yesteryear. I loved this one of my grandad, it brings back many happy childhood memories of summer days spent at our gran parents house in Lincoln (near Christchurch). My grandad grew the most scrumcious berries and fruits. Anyway, I have at last scrapped this wonderful memory, here it is...
I have created a digi/hybrid page, inspired by Louise's idea's in the Up2scrap blog, check these out HERE

I made my little watering can by stamping the image onto the back of a piece of an old coke can and cutting the image out. Next I lightly scored around the image out line, turned the image over and re scored so my image stood out and looked slightly 3D. I used alcohol inks to colour the tin and carefully painting on the daisies and heart.

The butterfly and black swirl design were printed out, the butterfly is from one of Louise's digital kits. Check out her Digi Fingers blog to find super cheap and super gorgeous digital kits.

Texture was created using all sorts of things from, tulle, string, ribbon, muslin cloth, and pretty much anything I could find on the day.
All of those bright green leaves were, once again,printed from one of Louise's digital kits, as was the journaling tag.(I have so many of her kits that I cannot recall which one these were from off hand!) These leaves are all the one same leaf, just printed out a gazillion times over! I spent quite some time cutting them all out.

My grandad was a man of the land, so I have attempted to portray this in my lay-out, right down to the seeds in the tiny glass bottle. As always I have created one extremely busy page!

I remember well my grandad often saying...Live by nature girl and you carn't go wrong.

I really don't quite know what he would make of the world today if he was still here!

Fly away Bruce

Look at Bruce now......hes grown into quite a character and I'm quite attached to him, but hes a wild bird and should be free so,on Saturday Bruce had his first taste of freedom.
Here he is, free ranging on the lawn close to the aviary that has become his home.


Bruce was out for a hour but would not fly away! He just wandered around the lawn exploring and picking up twigs and leaves.
Sunday morning I had a second attempt at setting Bruce free. After some time I decided that he was not going anywhere again. However on his way back to the aviary he found his wings! It was lovely to watch Bruce circle the house roof and land near the top of one of our big old gum trees.
Bruce was free, or so I thought! A short time latter I spotted Bruce sitting on the front fence, I approached him, thinking that he would head for the sky again, but no, Bruce looked at me, opened his mouth and began squawking for his lunch!
To cut along story short, Bruce ate and went on his way and I saw no more of him on Sunday.
Monday was a little bittersweet when Bruce did not show for breakfast, or lunch. Late afternoon I crossed the road to my mum and dads vege garden, to pinch a fresh lettuce. On passing their garage I stopped in my tracks when I thought I heard a squawk...could it possibly be Bruce I wondered?? Well it turned out Bruce had been locked in my dads garage since late Sunday afternoon! When I opened the door Bruce come flying at me, landed on my shoulder, beak wide open and pointing at my face, as much to say "wheres my diner!!'
Bruce is home again, he shows no interest in heading off into the blue sky's at the moment and he has been singing ever since his return to the aviary. Does anyone know if the male, or female magpie sings, I'm still not sure of his gender?
I guess Bruce will go free one day, but just now it seems he does not want to go anywhere.

Inspiration

Dianne's Circle Journal theme was Inspirational Quotes or Sayings

I decided to do a collage using scrap pieces of paper
I popped my inspirational quote on a tag and made a pocket for it to slot into
Dianne's whole album followed this blue/fawn colour scheme, and like the others it looks scrumptious!

Butterflys

Butterfly's was the theme for Sue's Circle Journal. I found so many wonderful and inspiring butterfly quotes when I went hunting...this was the one that I used for inspiration for the two pages I completed in Sue's circle journal...

Happiness is as elusive as a fluttering butterfly

and as easily attainable as a crawling Caterpillar

Put aside the net and

let it happen.

(words to life by I think!)

Thanks to Debbie at Glamourgirls I had the perfect image to go with this quote

My page was the very last in Sues journal, which was a real plus, as it meant I got to see the whole journal finished...and it looked gorgeous.

Pop to Sues blog to see all of her journal pages, you will find it HEREI hope my journal finds its way home soon.

Not camping weather

Wouldn't you just know it...its pouring rain here tonight for the first time in ages! And do you know why???...Its because our Cam headed away on School camp this morning!! Like his mum he's unlucky with the weather.

Here is Cam, with two of his mates, Hamish and Dean, waiting patiently on the rest of the team to pick them up on their way through Duntroon this morning The boys are heading up the Ahuriri, tramping in with their packs ( about a four hour hike) and tenting for three days. My guess is it will rain until Friday!!

Cody's dog Bid is not part of the team, even though she has her lunch packed and looks ready to go!!

Better Scrapbooking want YOU!

My time on the Design team at Better Scrapbooking is fast coming to an end. Ends are always sad. Don't forget there is still time to try out for a place on next years Design Team... here is the latest note from Megan regarding this

....

Design Team 2010

By the way remember this week is your last week to try out for the Design team. Simply email four photos of your favourite layouts that depict your style of scrap booking, also write a paragraph about yourself, telling us what you love about scrap booking ans why you would like to be a member of our Design Team. Please include a photo of yourself.

As a design team member you will be asked to create layouts once a month or every other month (depending on home many DT members I decide on) and over the course of a year you could receive up to $400 worth of free scrap booking goodies to design layouts and projects with. How cool is that. So quick get those designs in.

Entries need to be emailed to megan@betterscrapbooking.co.nz before 5pm December 7th.
Winners will be announced December 18th in the G&T newsletter.

Good luck to those of you who are giving this a go. I have loved being a part of Megan's talented team.

Here are three pages I popped in the Better Scrapbooking Gallery way back in 2007!!

I'd like to think my scrapping has improved since way back then!!

Isn't it funny to look back and see how your style and tastes have changed.