Spring is in the air

Sun, glorious sun, was at our house this weekend. I threw off my craft shirt and opted for shorts and tee shirt and heaped out into the jungle -alias garden!

Here is a little peek at the 'spring' in my garden

Violets always remind me of my dear mum- in law. Murial always used to pick me a bunch of the first blooms of these tiny gems from her garden each spring.

And...what is spring without blossom!

Better scrapbooking run a photo competition each month...this months theme is...Yes spring! Pop over here and show us spring at your house..you may just even win yourself a little something!

The end has come

Last week was challenge 6 of the Innovations challenge over at Crafytarts . Its sad to be at the end, I have enjoyed pushing myself out of my comfort zone and tring out new ways to scrap.
Last week the challenge was to use an item in a different way..here is what I did...

The little pine cones from our garden where just right for making into little flowers, which I did with the help of some tiny beads. My journalling spot is a cork coaster.

Instead of trim I used a boot lace, I made a frame from corrigated card...

used my stamped leaves, and made daisies from string

For my title I found this clothing tag (I have saved two draw fulls of clothing tags!!)

I knew I could make the words 'in it for life' fit my page..somehow! All I did was add a little ink and attach it to my page using double sided foam.

Check out the gallery to see the clever ideas that people come up with. This has been a fun competition, thanks Craftytart and all of the other 'players' I must tell you that one clever boy took part in this competition as well, and hes only ten!! Way to go Jonathon!! Be sure to check out his work in the gallery and add some encouraging comments.

Been busy

Here I am with some crafty bits! Check out my sugar bowl. I love it, my dear sweet mum in law gave it to me many years ago,sadly we have lost Murial from our lives, but she is never far from our thoughts.... Anyway... back to the sugar bowl... I used it as my inspiration for last weeks challenge over at Craftytarts.

We had to create something using a piece of crockery as inspirationI was sort on time with having to get away to Burwood so whipped up this altered clipboard.

I loved the soft teal colour overlapped with soft leaves and surrounded in white. And that splash of colour inside the bowl is just waiting to pop out I'm sure! (you may need to click on the photo for a closer view, its a little hard to see!)

Below is my first lot of work created as a design team member for Better Scrapbooking. All of the instructions , and instructions from some wonderful works created by the other DT members can be found on this months newsletter..here

All of my pages were created using goodies from last months ScrapPack, available at better scrapbooking.

Home sweet home

Things are pretty much back to normal at our house. We arrived home Saturday evening.

Cody had his hunting mates in residence, so nothing new there.

Aimee headed away to Dunedin Sunday afternoon with her school soccer team and tonight we picked up Camden who returned on the charter bus from Cromwell.

Our dogs are very happy to have us back, and we are happy to be back home.

Andrew has had his warrant of fitness, everything turned out to be well with his kidneys, his problems were being caused by bladder spasms by all accounts and the doctors have taken him off one drug and replaced it with three others! LOL!! The lovely ladies in Uro have me up to speed on doing 'bladder washouts'. And guess what...one of the nurses told me she reads my blog!! How amazing is that... goes to show it is important when blogging to say only good things about people :-)

Now I hate photos of me, but I'm going to be brave and share one anyway!

Aimee arrived on the Knight Rider bus at 2.45am Friday morning.

Here is Andrew off to the fish and chip shop, this was the first time since his accident that he had acutely gone inside a fish and chip shop ..the doors in Oamaru are not wide enough !

The little unit behind him is where we stayed on the hospital grounds..

Thanks so much to everyone for the well wishes and kind thoughts.

Tomorrow I have some crafty stuff to show you.

Saying hello

Hi there. Ive found a computer at Burwood! So saying a quick hello. Andrew is busy going through his correspondence course under the helpfull eye of one of the compter wiz's here.
Aimee is arriving in Christchurch tonight via the Night Rider Bus, due in the centre about 2.30 am this morning... will be a sleepless night pretty much! I am yet to work out just where I am going to collect her from. I don't know my way around ChCh at all!!
Cody is away again for the coming weekend, yes another hunting trip.
Camden, who has caused us some greif (re issues at school) this week, heads away on the charter bus that leaves school this afternoon, to spend the weekend with a friend at his parents batch on the West Coast. So we will not catch up with him, in person until Monday evening.
Things are going okay at Burwood, Andrew has a kidney problem it would seem, we are stil waiting on scans to be taken to find out exactly what the problem is.
The weather is being kind to us, with sun, sun and more sun!!
I am looking forward to getting home again on Saturday night.
Its kind of strange blogging in such a public place, so I shall say bye bye for now.
Hope the week is going well for you all.
Might just sneak into my favourite sites now for a wee peek.

Bye bye for now

Thanks to everyone for your well wishes.
Thank you also to Renate for surprising me with a phone call (all the way from Germany ) this morning. Lovely to talk to you.

Wishing all my readers and friends a wonderful, happy , sunny week.
'SEE' you all again next week. Take care

Anniversary and... storage.

Today was the anniversary of Andrew breaking his neck... Five years ago our whole life changed big time! We didn't celebrate today, in fact we tried not to dwell on this anniversary at all!!!

Tomorrow we head to Burwood hospital for a week, funny that this visit should fall so close to that dreadful day five years ago.

On to brighter things now...

Here is my entry for week 4 at Crafty Tarts. This was a tough one, we had to create an inspired storage idea. At first I thought this was going to be so simple as I have my ribbon holder that I had made from a handy towel holder...but alas, I could not use that as I had already posted it onto my blog. Hmmmm... after lots of thought and coming up with blanks I had a poke around my room to see what needed a better storage space. Look what I found!!...

this great tangled mess!!

My embroidery threads and laces really DO need a new home!

After poking in corners and under beds I found this treasure of a box that I always knew would be handy for something one day!

The only problem was ..what, and how was I going to go about transforming this old gift box!!First up I drilled sawed and dremmeled

Then I painted and sanded and ...

painted some more.

Next I sawed...

... hammered, glued...

threaded, typed

cut and stamped, glued some more...hammered some more ...until...

FOL LA!!! ... Look at my threads and laces now...all neat and tidy and mounted on my wall , just waiting for me to reach in and start creating!

I still have a little detangling to do, but I'm getting there!
Thanks again Crafty Tarts!!!

Check out the other wonderful storage ideas here, I am going to borrow some of these ideas myself!

Delight in life

Today I have started packing for our trip to Burwood. Andrew and I head away on Sunday, for a fun week at the hospital, ( I am thinking positive thoughts here!!). truly though, I'm not a huge fan of hospitals!!

I am almost up to date with my crafty capers. My Design team work for Better Scrapbooking is finished and now on Megan's computer. Carol's circle journal is awaiting posting.

I have completed challenge #4 at Craftytarts. Challenge 5 will be up in the morning, so hopefully I can throw something together for that one before we leave, only problem is that I'm not at all good at 'throwing things together!!

I do still have my 'Violet' ATC's to finish, might try and do that now.

I had another play with Digi Scrapping today, in between other jobs!! It is wonderful to be left with zero mess!!

Now I'm not very good at this yet, but if you promise not to laugh I will show you what I have done......

I used pieces of two different digi kits here, one called 'Dreams of Summer ' and the other one is called 'Vintage Romance' These kits can be found at Eidou.

Do any of you know how to digital scrapbook, and are you able to give me any tips??? I need all the help I can get!

Out in the sticks

While Andrew and I were busy in the weekend with all of the glitz and glam of the school ball, Cody was out doing what he loves best. He and his hunting mate took some great photos, so I thought i'd share a few with you...

I do not get the attraction to hunting, but just take a look at that view, I can see why the boys love it out here.

This is Chopper, isn't he looking regal against this wonderful backdrop! Cody and crew!

This is Dan with his catch (I just have to laugh at his long johns).

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions,

perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music

which he hears..." Henry David Thoreau

CraftyTart take 3

Challenge three at Craftytarts was to create a page or OTP (off the page) project inspired by the little people in our lives.
My little people are now all taller than me, but I had a lovely two days - that's how long it took me to decide- digging through photos of 'days of old'.
I settled for Cody playing in a banana box in the end, just because in every photo of him he was up to some sort of 'fun' and always looked to be loving every moment of it!

My photo had such a cluttered background that no amount of photo shopping made it look much better, so I did the unthinkable and cut Cody out of the photo!! Yeeks!!! I have never done this before, mostly because usually the background tells its own story but also because I do not feel confident about scrapping a cut out photo. Anyway, I threw caution to the wind and did it!

Cody loved Dr Seuss books at this age, so I decided to use a Dr Seuss ex cert from 'Cat in the Hat'
as the basis for my LO....

Look at me, Look at me, Look at me now...Its fun to have fun, but you have to know how!

I had fun moving out of my comfort zone and creating this page! Thanks again Craftytart!!

A huge congratulations to Tanya and Grace who come in first and second this week WTG girls!!

Check out all the wonderful entries HERE

A few photos from a proud mum

Last night we went to the ball. Aimee was a little mortified when i told her we were going to!! However, we stayed on 'our side' of the room, most of the time and did not cramp her style too much! Aimee even come and said hello a few times during the evening, so we felt very honored!
Here are a few photos... forgot to get one taken of Andrew and I though.

This is Claire and Aimee, these two have been best of friends since playgroup, in fact they used to sit side by side in their car seats on the playgroup floor, before they could even talk!! Now days they never stop talking!!
This is Michael, Aimee's new best friend. Michael's mum is the background and you may just be able to see Andrew there as well.

Snapped this photo just before leaving the motel to head to the Ball parade.

Aimee and Michael strut their stuff on the 'cat walk'.

Aimee does not look too phased by our presence! ( I did not take this photo by the way! )

One more photo...

I meant to add that my clever mum made Aimee's dress from a picture on a tiny video clip on U tube, emailed to us from Aimee. (Click on the photos for a look at the detail)
Thanks Gran!!!

Busy busy ...

I know, I haven't blogged ALL week!! I have been super busy.

I don't even have much to show you so, here is a wee peek at the cover of my circle journal. At the moment Sue has my journal and I have Carols, very soon we will be sending our journals on their journey once again.

As many of you know my term on the Scrapbooking By Design design team has come to an end, but I am now designing for Better Scrapbooking. This week I received my first pack of goodies to get working on. That, along with the circle journal, ATC 'rainbow swap' and the competition at Crafty Tarts has kept me very busy.

Also tomorrow night is Aimees school ball, all in all it has been a crazy week!

I have to get my craft work finished next week as on Sunday Andrew and I head back to Burwood Hospital for Andrews 'overhaul'. I am also going to get a little more career training,. Fingers crossed we will not have to stay at the hospital for more than a week... Ive far too much to do in my craft room :-))

The new challenge at Crafty tarts is a hard one, I have been working on an idea this afternoon, and all I have to show for it is one huge mess!!! Now I'm off to clean up as have lots to do before bed, and tomorrow is going to be a long night!!

Hes a Southern Man

Last week I was up to my elbows in tissue paper and mod-podge creating a LO for Challenge two of CraftyTarts competition. Below is the picture that we all had to use as our inspiration.
I only needed a very short think about this one before deciding pretty much what I was wanting to do and what photo to use.

Here it is... A recent photo from one of Cody's hunting expeditions. It works pretty well with all of that 'white space', which of course I could not bring myself to leave empty. LOL, I'm not really a blank space kind of scrapper...but I LOVE 'white space'

My title was easy, it kind of fell into place as i was using a newspaper to pop a little 'advertising' onto my page (inspiration from the advertising in the sample) I was using a southern farming news paper and my lad is a true blue 'southern' kind of a bloke, so I googled the words of the Southern Man song and ...hey presto... they were totally made for my lad and my page!
My only doubt is that may be they are not suitable for a 'North Island' challenge. Hmmmm...!!!

My embellishments took the most thinking about, I wanted to make them southern man - affied
so I have a beer bottle cap, pull tag from a beer can, a little bit of string, a clock face (which may not have a whole lot of significance except it fitted on the bottle top perfectly!) and rose hip berries and foliage. To tie this in with my background I have rolled up a little of that farming newspaper.

and of course added a little 'snow' in the form of paint. I had fun with this challenge even though I made one huge mess!

Check out this weeks challenge here and do give it a go if you get a chance. Hannah has added a gorgeous sample that is well worth a look.

Glitz and glam'

Saturday night (1st August) saw the Waitaki girls, and Boys school formal. Our children do not go to either of these schools, but Aimee was asked to go and of course would never turn down an opportunity to socialise. I spoke to Aimee, via phone, the morning of the ball and said that I might pop in, she said there was no need!! Very independent our girl, so different to our boys!!
Latter that same morning I received a text asking if I could come in after all as one of the hostel girls had no dress to wear...and could I please bring in last years dress. I rounded up all of the formal dresses I could find in our house, iron, needle and thread and headed to town.

When I arrived at the hostel Aimee was in the process of doing her hair.

Here they are soon after... Aimee and friends with their faces and hair looking great!
After picking up snacks, and drinks for the after party I dropped the girls at their motel, and must say this was one extremely busy motel room!!
Here they are dressed and ready and waiting for their dates to pick them up.

All these girls in one tiny motel room, there are also lots of mums, dads, grandmas , pars,brothers and sisters in the background and the odd boyfriend floating around.

Okay.... I'm looking somewhat shabby here, but I had been running around like a mad thing for several hours by this stage! (that's my excuse anyway!)

One ball down, another coming up in a fortnights time. Kind of sad to think that will be Aimee's last ever school ball. Where have the last few years gone...and when did I get so old looking??