Happy 16th Birthday Jarryd!!!

We have had such a busy week!! We had visitors everyday since Saturday! Family visitors.....the kind who stay for lunch & dinner and even overnight!!!

We got to go out Tuesday night with 2 other couples (Joseph's relatives) to the casino and it was fun!!! Our first stop was caffeine and I headed straight to Coffee bean tea leaf and it was gone!!! I was sooo sad :( It is now called Cafe....owned by crown....not as good...but I was relieved that my favourite sofas were still there...right in front of the tv screen. We chatted for a good hour and a half before exploring the casino and settled on rapid roulette...minimum bet of 50c...rofl....it was fun. We didn't win but didn't lose too much either so that was ok. We finished the night off with a stop at the food court for some yummy chinese congee before getting home at 1am.

Jarryd, our middle son turned 16 yesterday. Yup...an Anzac Day baby! when I was given my choice of 3 days, I was amazed that the surgeons scheduled caesareans on public holidays and quickly booked for that morning. It's fabulous that his birthday falls on a public holiday. DH's aunty had stayed the night with us and MIL came around lunchtime and stayed all afternoon and we decided to go out for dinner....I was over cooking......over entertaining...we went to a fabulous chinese restaurant near our house and had a great meal....came home and our visitors didn't go home till midnight. when I went to bed....it hit me....omg....what kind of mother am I? I forgot to get cake!!!! WE didn't get to sing happy birthday at all!!! We wished him happy birthday, gave him his gift (money & phone credit) and took him out to dinner and made sure we ordered the requisite noodle dish for long life....but we forgot cake!!!

This morning....while cuddling with Jeromel in bed....another thought lit up in my foggy sleep deprived brain.....omg....we forgot to do Jeromel's 2nd head lice treatment!!!! It was supposed to be done a week apart and we should have done it wednesday night....arrrgggghhhhh....plus.....we had all slept in!! So I kept Jeromel home to treat his hair.......and it was good.....nothing to find!! Then I couldn't scrap....I did everything but scrap...I vacumned, unloaded the dishwasher, washed 2 loads of laundry, made lunch for us, tidied up....sigh....told myself...after lunch...I must scrap!!!

But life had other plans for me....lunchtime, I got a call from the vice principal at the high school....oh no....Jordan was really sick after his athletic events. He just about collapsed in the bathroom at school (ewww) and couldn't muster the strength to get up....the poor boy had to wait about half an hour before someone came to use the bathroom and discovered him. He was assessed by staff in the bathroom before they decided to take him home. It took two guys to take him out to the car...he could barely walk...could barely stay awake....could barely talk....pure exhaustion. It was pretty scary to see him like that. I rang the ambulance service to get some help and they told me that it was ok to let him have a sleep but to wake him up every hour to check on him. Jordan's girlfriend Felicity came home with him in the vice principal's car...so she helped to look after him as well. After about 4 hours...he was much better....he got up to eat something and have a shower.

By 4.30pm, Jarryd was home and everyone was ok...so I left him in charge and quickly dashed out to the shops to get something for dinner. Got some chicken breast schnitzel and some salmon & beans...and something for dessert to make up for us forgetting to get Jarryd cake.

Now....for something out of the blue.....Moxie Scanty Panty Liners - love them love them love them!!!

Cybercrop layouts.....

I decided to join in the 123 cybercrop a couple of weeks ago while DH was away......kids were working...I was a bit lonely and wanting some excitement on a friday night and this was as exciting as it could get for me. LOL It was fun and mentally I committed to doing all 3 of the challenges. So here they are:

Challenge 1 criteria - brown with a touch of blue, photo collage, sketch, paper tearing
I decided to scrap the beautiful photos I had taken when I went with Jeromel on his first school excursion. I had never been on a cruise on the Yarra before and it was absolutely awesome.....the sights were just simply spectacular.


Challenge 2 - mother's day/easter gift, transparency and wings. So I decided to make an explosion box....lots of fun to do and surprisingly quick. Each of the 4 sides of the box has flaps which store 5 photos so there is enough room for 20 photos on this small project!!
Challenge 3 criteria was visible paint, chipboard and a Scrap Therapy prompt...I chose food coz I love food. LOL!! yes, there is hidden journalling and my secret is inside that photo folder.....which I will reveal soon....although you may have to bribe me with a prize! lol
So those are my layouts over the last few days. Next on my list of things to do are my layouts for Scrapping Angels...for my kit.....omg.....soooooo yummy!!!

Is anyone elses child mad on the Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles? I love how the dudes are back in fashion! They were sooo popular in 1989 when Jordan was born. I used to play that on the Nintendo with my brother in law. Jordan's 1st birthday cake was a teenage mutant ninja turtle cake. His first doona cover was teenage mutant ninja turtle. Now it's Jeromel's turn...he's obsessed!!! In the past 2 weeks, we have collected 3 ninja turtles from mcdonalds....he missed out on the first one, the orange one - Michaelangelo. Anyone got a spare???? LOL

An awesome month!!!

It has turned into an absolutely awesome month. Rach told me that I am also in For Keeps this month!! I was absolutely gob smacked.....this means I am in ALL 4 magazines this month. Mich called it a Quadrella..............*happy dance*.
This layout is a Awards for Excellence layout. I entered last year and obviously didn't win but FK kept one of my layouts for future publication....which I guess is now! Since then, FK haven't accepted any of my layouts.....sigh!

Anyways, I love this layout...love the scenic route, the 7 gypsies stickers, dimensional dots, and I fell in love with the scenic route chipboard alphas then. Flowers were cut out and 'popped', 7 gypsies stickers were mounted on chipboard first to give them more dimension.

Yikes, I nearly forgot that Michelle Tan tagged me! Which reminds me that Adeline tagged me many moons ago.....same kind of tag....reveal little known facts and idiosyncrasies.....

Here's the deal, I list 7 random facts about myself and then choose 7 people to tag to do the same thing on their blog.

1. I have an irrational fear of snakes. I can't even stand looking at pictures of snakes....I recoil immediately in repulse and freeze up inside. And I 'swear' that whatever brief glimpse I have of a picture of a snake.....it actually moves.

2. Each time I get my mail from the mailbox, I always check the stamps...just in case Australia post haven't 'stamped' it....which means that I can re-use the stamps. When I find one of those stamps....I'm happy...even if it's 50c....coz it means that I have a free stamp to use. LOL...sad case!

3. I am the most unphotogenic person ever!!! I look crap in 97% of photos. My friend Susan Darcy actually took some unbelievably great photos of me last year and I have overused them.....DH keeps telling me that I have to book another photoshoot.

4. I am not very girly. I don't like shopping for clothes because of how big I am...I get depressed when I have to go and shop for clothes for an event. I don't like buying make up or perfume. I don't like girly shoes.....like strappy high heeled shoes with bling....don't like them....because comfort means everything to me.

5. I don't enjoy cooking. Yes, people tell me I am a great cook and that my food is tasty....but 90% of the time, I don't enjoy cooking meals. I enjoy baking...but not cooking everyday meals. I cook very simple nutritious meals for my family and I must be doing something right because they are sooo tall and healthy looking....I am going to knock on wood and have a little brag....but my teens have no acne. And it's definately not attibuted to great genes because Joseph and I still suffer from acne!

6. I have had 3 c-sections. My first was an emergency c-section after being in induced labour for 13 hours....Jordan ended up getting stuck. He was average size.....head circumference of 36cm & 51cm long. It was found out that my pelvic outlet is smaller than 'average'...so it only opens up to about 34cm which is why Jordan got stuck. With my subsequent pregnancies...I could have tried VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean).....I declined....lol....chicken! Luckily I made that decision because as far as my body is concerned, it produces very consistent babies....all my babies have EXACTLY the same length and head circumferences. BB1 and BB3 are even the exact same weight 3590gms while BB2 was only 20gms lighter.

7. I scar very badly.....I suffer from keloid scars and with my first c-section my scar was like a really thick knotted rope.....it was horrid. Plus pregnancy hormones had me breaking out in acne on my back and chest and I ended up with huge (and I mean huge) keloid scars all over my back....which is something I am very self conscious about.

Ok....that was soo revealing.....while having breakfast...I was wondering if I was going to be able to find 7 things....and once I got going...I could have kept going until I got to 100....lol

I am tagging....
Shirley, Vita, Felicity, Jasmine(Jazz), Sofi P, Jane Fitchett and Kylie Wise ;P

Published layouts!

This month is an amazing month!!! I am in 3 magazines!!!

My first time being published in Creating Keepsakes!!! I had submitted about 10 layouts to them before this one was picked up. This is my 30 min layout...very simple...I guess that's what Creating Keepsakes likes.

This month, I am in Scrapbook creations with this 'Dare to Dream' layout. It is actually a rejected layout from the FK Awards for Excellence. LOL...I love the A2Z papers...wish I could get them in Australia.


And yes, I'm in Scrapbooking Memories Vol 8 No.10

I pretty much did a *happy dance* when I got the email from Krys at Scrapbooking Memories inviting me to take part in the Pink Martini product review. Quickly googled Pink Martini and then decided that all papers were fine for me to work with .....except maybe the purple range Flirtini. I find purple challenging. OK...it's a nice colour...but whenever I try to do anything with it....it just doesn't look right to me. I prayed hard 'not purple, not purple, not purple'....God must have only heard purple purple purple coz when the package came from Scrapbooking Memories....flirtini stared back at me....*blink blink*. So I spread out the papers and embellishments on the dining table...for the next day...each time I walked past, I would add some embellishments and photos for 'consideration'....until late that afternoon when all of a sudden...a layout materialised in my head...yes...this happens quite a lot....I did a quick sketch before that mental image could disappear. And thus...that layout was born....I like it....it's very purple....but I like it....I can get lost looking into Jeromel's eyes.

Ok...I am searching for Creative Memories replacement blades for the 12 inch trimmer. Anyone know of a consultant or even better, somewhere where I can get it cheaper?

Single Mum.....

Yes, I'm a single Mum.....how dare he go and leave me? And during school holidays too!!! Can't wait till he gets back on Tuesday. LOL.....DH has just gone overseas for work. I'm missing him lots and we're talking for at least an hour a day which is helping. During the day, it's easy enough to pretend that he's at work but the evenings are when I miss him the most. Sigh...roll on tuesday!

I've had a nice week...
Tuesday I went over to Kylie's and she made us pancakes for lunch. Yummo! Jeromel had a great time playing with Jessica and Hannah. It was fascinating that they would go outside and play in the sandpit and I believe they were building a castle...then they would run inside to the girls bedroom and play dolls house...then back outside again.

Wednesday I had an impromptu lunch. Vita emailed the day before asking if she could come over for a visit and drop off a couple of card making idea books to me in the morning. So I asked Mich if she would mind coming over on wednesday instead of the thursday we had pre-arranged. And then on the spur of the moment, I invited Felicity as well. It was great....we got to have a really good chat and the kids all got along well....although there were some tears when it came down to sharing trains. It was Felicity's first time to my place and she was keen to see my scrap room.....lol....there is no scrap room...there is only scrap space...she was amazed at how little stuff I have. LOL...it all fits on one table. I had a big cull not long ago and rakked a lot away and sold some at the trash and treasure stand at crop for kids. I am officially paper poor....am down to half a cropper hopper full of paper....and half a cropper hopper full of bazzill. Yes....half!!! I think I have rectified that though....I shopped online!! LOL

Today, I had a mini date with my little man ....we went to Chadstone to get some photos developed and I shopped. I had retail therapy.....this time....with non scrapping and non food and non kids related stuff. I bought a pair of shoes from Colorado and two tops. Came home in the evening with some take out for dinner and realised that my email was stuffed up. I couldn't work out what was wrong....I rang Mich for help and her DH finally helped me work out that my computer had run out of memory. I rang optus help line hoping that they would have a backup of my emails....sigh.....no luck. So if you have emailed me anything yesterday (thursday)....then please email it again.

Ok...scrapping....

This layout is of my 2nd son Jarryd.....@15 it's just a matter of style. Jarryd loves clothes....fussy about clothes....labels matter and he's only 15!! Luckily he will save his pocket money and money from his part time job at the golden arches to buy his clothes. The boy saved all his tags for over a year...he pinned them onto his lamp until the whole lampshade was covered!! He came out of the room last week with a handful of tags asking if I wanted to use them for scrapping...bless him....he's a well trained scrappers son. I couldn't resist doing a layout on him for the Aussie Dares blog challenge
Eversince the inchies topic was raised in BB and Vivian Bonder showed her inchies....I was mesmerised....what a cool name...what a cool idea....I mean....decorate a square inch? yah...I can do that!!! Maybe not as well as Vivian Bonder....but I was going to give it a shot. When Mich was over yesterday she brought up the inchies topic as well and I raided my stash and gave her some to do a layout as well. I've had these photos and papers for a while now and finally got around to scrapping them last night. Thought that the inchies would make nice embellishments for the layout. And I was right! I love the effect....I'm going to use inchies again!! Where's your inchies layout Mich??

I'm in lurve!!!!

yes..u read it right...I'm in lurve....feel deeply and madly in lurve with a piece of furniture. ...yes..something that will not lurve me back. But that's ok. DH and I have been married nearly 20 years...and we've never owned a new lounge suite. We've had handed down lounge suites and 2nd hand loungesuites for years....our current one has been in the family for about 15 years!!! And in our house for 10 years!!! It's served our boisterous boys very well...and it's past retirement age and DH and I have been shopping around for a replacement for a while now. We're fussy....we had to have leather...nice leather...not slippery smooth cold leather...but leather with a bit of texture, softness and warmth to it. It has to be firm ...it has to be long...it has to be large...it has to be comfy. I kid you not...we've tested over 100 couches!!! A couple of weeks ago, we ordered this beauty from Bay Leather Republic. Meet Verona...and pls don't be horrified...we wouldn't order a white lounge with 3 boys....we ordered it in chocolate brown. We got a 3 seater and a 2 seater. I *heart* it mucho mucho!!Scrappingwise.......not done very much because it has been a bit busy in this household. DH was home sick this week and with everyone home...it was great...but threw all routines out the window. I did this layout for Aussie Dares
for the Freestyler scraplift challenge. I was inspired by all the layouts....didn't know which one to pick...so I set out to scraplift Nic Howard's layout....loved the way she layered the alphas in the title and wanted to give that a go...and then when I finished my layout...I realised that it also had a sprinkling of inspiration from Wendy Redshaw-Bruhns with the curly arrow. So maybe it a fusion freestyler scraplift....I had fun...I scrapped a layout which I absolutely adore and in the end, what matters is a moment and a memory was captured. Mission accomplished!! Also very proud to announce that I am now one of the contributors for Aussie Dares. I also made a couple of cards, an easter gift box and a double layout of Jarryd...and a circle journal.....so all in all...not too bad I guess!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Hooray for School holidays!!!

Hooray for holidays...hooray!!! Ok ok......I can hear all the WTF?? all the way to my house. Yes, not many people like school holidays....but I do. Why??? Coz I get to sleep in.....I don't have to wake up at 6.45am to get myself and the kids ready for school. It also means that I can plan to have a pyjama day....a day where I don't have to get out of pyjamas until at least after lunch. School holidays are easy for teenagers.

Jordan is a night owl....so he goes to bed after midnight and can sleep until lunchtime. He's grumpy if he has to wake before lunchtime year round...so during the school term...he's always grumpy.....he's always in a much better mood by the time he's home from school. And the chirpiest when it's around 10pm.
Jarryd is a bear....he likes to sleep....hibernate.....he will wake up relatively early....have breakfast...and then watch tv or play on the computer....then if I am out of my bedroom...he will go and crash in there for an hour or so...if my bed isn't available...the couch is his next choice....he likes to have naps. He's the bear.
Jeromel is a typical 6 year old.....no naps during the day...in bed by about 9.30pm during holidays and is awake at about 9am. This boy likes to sleep too! He was never like this for the first year of his life...he was a baby cat napper or is that a kitten napper? He would do short 30 - 40 sleeps...and would only fall asleep when he was in the sling or in my arms. We thought he was totally spoilt....until we took him to the chiropractor.....omg....what a difference!!!

Jordan and Jarryd love school holidays...they get to sleep in...they get to play on the computer...they get to laze around....they do extra shifts at work......and thus..have social lives....they go out....they shop...they lunch with friends...they go to movies....they don't get bored.

Jeromel was devastated when he was told that he didn't have school for 2 weeks....the teacher said that most prep kids are very sad about this...so she only told them a few days before end of school. This morning, Jeromel asked what uniform he should wear and I reminded him that it was school holidays...no school....he was quiet...but accepted it. We went out on errands today....one of which was to the Nestle Peters Icecream factory....omg..if you live in Vic...you have to go...my first time...usually, my cousin or my friend buys for me...but now they both work...so...today, after much persuasion from my boys....I decided to go....a box of 24 nudie Berry icypoles for $10 and a box of 18 choc top cornettos for $15!!! My boys were happy.....they had their holiday treat! On the way home...Jeromel asked when we were going to holidays. I said he was having school holidays now....but he kept asking when we were going to go on holidays.....to stay at a different place kind of holiday...then it clicked.....he thought school holidays was when we were going to go away. He has been on holidays before...overseas holidays, interstate holidays....and little overnight holidays in Victoria. Then he was silent for the rest of the way home...when we drove past the school, he had a look down the street and he said....the school is still there...it didn't go on holidays.....and then wanted to know who came up with the wise idea of 'school holidays'. Sigh!!

LOL....if you're all still reading and haven't gone....then I suppose I should show you some pics...sadly...no food pics to show...but I have some layouts!! These are all from my One Page At A Time April kit....hurry...there are still some left...but they are bound to sell out quickly. The alphas are by Around the Block..they are called Shrinky Stickers (Doodle).....if anyone can find them....please let me know...I want another pack or two....I love them!!!!

One other thing I had to do today as to deliver a stack of Trinature brochures to Wendy and Jess for the Crop for Kids Good Friday appeal. The brochures will be going in the goodie bags that everyone will receive when they go that day. From what I hear...there will be a lot of yummy things in the bags.....yummy things like AC ribbon....and a Fiskars apron....and lots and lots of other things....and of course....my Trinature brochure which gives you 10% off all orders placed until the end of June. What is trinature? No...it's not a scrapping product....tee hee....Trinature is an Australian company that makes enviromentally safe biodegradable cleaning & personal products. Two of my kids are asthmatics and suffer from eczema as well...a few years ago, to my relief, I found Trinature and loved their products...loved them so much that I decided to join up and sell them...or back then it was just to buy them at a cheaper price. If you are looking for any trinature products or want more info...please send me an email or leave a comment! Ok...shameless plug done. LOL

Never stressed about desserts!

It was party time at our house on the weekend! It was a joint celebration for Jeromel's and Joseph's birthday....and we ended up celebrating with Uncle Dem and Tom as well as their birthdays are all quite close together. A very fun time with lots and lots of food...would you believe that I forgot all about taking food photos of the main course???

We had :

BBQ Loin Lamb chops, Nando's chicken and Hoisin pork ribs
Seafood Potato salad
Green salad
A huge bowl of prawns
Beef Rendang
Joseph's favourite Tomato and basil salad
Uncle Dem's famous Tanghoon (vermicelli)

And these special beauties....these are called Filipino Fresh Lumpiah...or fresh spring rolls. Very time consuming to make...the inside is stuffed with finely julienned pork, chicken, prawns, beans, carrots and turnip (bang kwang). The crepe itself is freshly made from scratch and is beautiful, eggy and soft. This is eaten with a garlic flavoured creamy sauce and because they are sooo time consuming to make and the crepe making process is quite tricky....I'm not that fond of making them. But since Joseph requested these for his birthday....we compromised with the menu (as in more bbqs since he is the bbq master) and less cooked dishes.

Now we're onto the fun part...the part where I remembered to get the camera...cake blowing time!! LOL Cake time was a real group affair....Joseph, Jeromel, Tom and Uncle Dem each got their own cakes....and thank goodness we only had to sing happy birthday once...coz everyone was itching to dig into the desserts....I'm not quite sure....but maybe we didn't have enough desserts....let me take you through them....

Mango Gateaux from Bread Top....
the lightest of sponge cakes, fresh cream, egg crepe around the outside, lots of sliced mangos inside and on top of the cake.

Taro (Yam) Gateaux from Bread Top
This was the first cake that I saw just as I walked in...the last Taro Gateaux....I had to have it.....this is sooo delish. Again, the lightest of sponge cakes with the most beautiful combination of fresh cream with mashed taro and a hint of coconut milk.....yummilicious!!

Baked Blueberry cheesecake topped with fresh blueberries and jam glaze
Not sure where Nucel got this from....but it was delicious...my favourite bit was the fresh blueberries on top of the cake
Broken Glass Dessert
What??? ok..there is no broken glass in it. It is a gelatin dessert that is really pretty, when you cut slices, you can see the green and red jelly that has been suspended in the white milky gelatin. This is a Filipino dessert and made by MIL.


You would think that would be enough desserts...but there were more, there was another whipped cheesecake, an almond fruit cake, maha blanca (white corn dessert), and steamed kueh made by Cher.

After all that eating....it was game time!!!!!

Crop for Kids fundraiser money box came out and got started that night too....lol....we passed around the lolly jar and people made a donation. And then it got left on the card table and it got topped up that night after we finished our card game at 2.30am.

Poster girl duties......

Ok...before I launch into my adventures over the last few days, I have to share something exciting. The lovely Trish Reed from Scrapping Angels
emailed me today to tell me that the things that I had picked out for my May kit had started to arrive!!!! How egg-citing!!!! Can I tell you how much fun I had picking out the things for my kit? Everything is from CHA2007....I am so fortunate that the timing was right and I was lucky enough to have been able to pick things out of the CHA 2007 sneak peeks!!! The colours, textures, shapes, ....everything was agonised over....every little detail was ooohed and aaaaheed and ummmmeeeed and aaaaaaheeed over until I was happy with the kit.

Trish has said that there has been quite a bit of interest in my kits already and wanted me to let people know that they are limited edition kits...once they are sold...they are gone....they won't be re-ordered again. There is no subscription system, but you can pre-purchase with your credit card or if you live outside Australia, you will need to have a paypal account. The March kit sold out in a day and the April kit which is to be launched on the 1st April ....apparently there are under 10 kits left!!!

So if you don't want to miss out on my first Scrapping Angels deluxe kit...head on over to Scrapping Angels, sign up and email Trish about pre-purchasing it. With the deluxe kit, you will get full step by step instructions to create layouts as well as an online chat session where I will be available to chat or answer questions about layouts etc.

Ok....poster girl duties.....

I had a really fun day on Friday....after the school drop off, I went over to ' I can love u long time' Wendy's and picked up 3 Crop for Kids posters and a big handful of leaflets and headed up to Arty Pants.It's been a while since I visited and can I just say that everytime....EVERYTIME...I have been there...the shop is different. Stock has always been moved around and rearranged....there's always stacks of new products and new things for me to play with! I had lots of fun chatting to Jodie and Judy and I got my new DT pack which is oh sooo nice.

While there...I also got to road test the cuttlebug...Jodie only had the embossing files...so I bought some cardstock and tested out the swirls, flowers and script.....omg....it embosses soooo deeply and with such amazing detail. Was lots of fun!!! And I also got to take the EK Success Curvy cutter home to road test.....I used it for my Squashed Rasberry layout.....it cuts effortlessly....and yes...while the packet only says that it cuts up to 7.5inches....it does cut a nice 12 inch circle when you put the cutter on the outside of the circle.

During my time in the shop, Judy not only put the large poster on the front window in prime position, but she photocopied the large Crop for Kids poster and put them all over the inside of the shop as well ....wtg Judy!!!

Ok...after I left Arty Pants....I went to Scrappers Warehouse (the purple shop in Narre Warren) to drop off a poster and some leaflets for them to put up in the shop, but the owner Gabby wasn't there so I left the posters and leaflets with the girls who were working there that day. I hadn't contacted them prior to dropping by, but I figured there's no big deal in putting up a poster in the front window to advertise for a Good Friday Crop for Kids fundraiser right??????

After that.....I decided that my last remaining poster and smallish stack of leaflets should go to someone fun.....someone whom I have been meaning to visit for a while now....so off I went...to top up on petrol and make the drive to see the lovely Wendy T at Paperdoll Boutique in Frankston. It was lovely to catch up with Wendy ....who had absolutely no hesitation in agreeing to put up the poster and leave the leaflets on the counter. But who stunned me by saying that she's thinking of cancelling their crop for that week and having it at the fundraiser....what a fabulous idea....it's for such a great cause and everyone who attends will get a goodie bag with lots of yummy things in it.....and the opportunity to win lots and lots of prizes!!! Wendy took it up one more notch and is going to donate a prize as well. How awesome is this woman???? Muaks Wendy, your generosity is touching!

This month, our Arty Pants DT packs were so kindly sponsored by Rasberry......have u heard of them? I hadn't! But now I have ....they're Australian and make such cute funky papers & embellishments!! I got to work with their range cutely called Squashed Rasberry ....I went over to MIL's specifically to use her sewing machine....lol.....after my stitching experience at the retreat.....when I was putting this layout together...I knew that machine stitching would make the layout....so I exercised some self control, packed the things up and headed to MIL's. Love love love the end result.




This weekend saw me do my entries for 2CJs as well....so all in all, quite a productive long weekend. Not as productive as last weekend at the retreat...but not too bad considering that on top of this...we had a family gathering last night and we've also been out furniture shopping for a new lounge suite.

Hope you had a lovely weekend!!!

Scrapanalia Retreat

Last weekend was the weekend I had been looking forward to for 6 long months. Scrapanalia Retreat at The Country Place in Kalorama. It's only about an hour away but it seemed like I was in the middle of nowhere. Nestled in a mountain, the place was just beautiful.

Friday
Checked in about 7pm and stashed both scrap bags in the Crop room downstairs and then Mich took me upstairs to our room. Omg...the Crop room was just fabulous!! The bedroom was very comfortable....two single beds, wall mounted tv, desk, cupboard, air conditioning (very important to me) and all the amenities I needed including tea/coffee making facilities which didn't get used at all.
Back at the crop room, Jess decided to get us to mingle with other people so we were each handed out a name of an animal and I then had to walk around the room making that animal sound - neigh neigh until I found the other horses whom I was dining with. It was great as I got to meet a bunch of other ladies over a fabulous dinner of a huge eye fillet steak meal finished with a triple layer cheesecake with a mixed berry sauce.
By the time we finished dinner it was about 9pm and I immediately got stuck into chit chat with the other girls. I was on a huge table sitting with Wendy, Carolyne, Megan, Sofi, Katie, Shirley, Mich, Felicity, Jen, Ange, Trish, Anne Marie, Jen and Jacqui. With Mich & Shirley on one side, Felicity& Jen on the other and Trish, Anne Marie & Jacqui in front of me, I was never short of people to talk to or conversation to listen in on and funny stories shared.

I did a double layout that night and even did machine stitching!!!! Enjoyed it so much and told myself to take advantage of the machine during the weekend but sadly....I forgot all about it and didn't do anymore!


By the time I was done with that double...it was bedtime....it was about 2am...and mojo had deserted me ...so it was off to bed and I was soo restless that night....even with bringing my own pillow....I found that it wasn't only mojo that had deserted me....sleep & mojo were both away galavanting in the mountains!! So I tossed and turned and kept poor Mich awake for most of the night. I think I got about 3 hours sleep only.

Saturday
8am Breakfast - absolutely spoilt for choice...should I have bircher muesli, 4 other breakfast cereals, fruit compote, fresh fruit, toast with spreads, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, bacon or muffin for breakfast??? Such a hard choice....I had peanut butter on toast and a poached egg and some bacon....yummo

Back at the scrapping room, I did this layout with the yummy products I had been hoarding for a couple of months which I bought from the USBefore too long it was time for Katie Toland's class....my first proper class and it was lots of fun. Being me, I strayed a bit from the original design and added a chipboard swirlie

Lunch was lovely.....lol.....I think of lunch and I can see Mich's face when she saw it was a cold lunch....if you haven't read her blog about lunch....then you won't understand. We still wolfed down the divine sandwiches and fresh fruit. Then it was back to scrapping and I very quickly did this layout which I had been meaning to do since Valentine's day...hope you can read the journalling. I tied for first place in the journalling category with this layout.

+Dinner was oh absolutely divine!!! I had lamb cutlets over a bed of roast pumpkin mash with a chilli jam and oven roasted tomatoes. Dessert was passionfruit pannecotta on a layer of grilled pineapple topped with a delightful bunch of persian fairy floss

While dinner was finishing up....Jess came up and was whispering to Mich and we were informed about a small water spill at our work table....aaarrrggghhh.....it wasn't small at all.....it was pretty big. Mich's layout got warped with the water....there was water everywhere....I was very upset when I found that the water had damaged my altered scrapping essentials tin and the sealer had started to dissolve, chipboard was peeling off in layers, ....there was spillage on the altered smiggle diary that I was working on....the whole roll of double sided tape that I had borrowed from Mich was totally soaked to the core and had to be binned.....we swore a lot but after half an hour after we finished mopping up....it was forgotten. Mistakes do happen and asides from a damaged altered tin.....it was ok....even Mich's layout was ok which was a relief as she had spent at least an hour HAND STITCHING all around a piece of SCALLOPPED BAZZILL!!

That night, it was announced that I won a prize for my 'conversations with you' layout and tied for first place with the 'he touched my heart' layout. Absolutely thrilled to win. Fired with my win, I felt motivated enough to scrap scrap & scrap.By the time I did the MOD layout....I was kind of feeling a bit delirious from the lack of sleep....but mojo had other ideas for me...so I scrapped. I hopped on the internet to look for a title and nearly chose this one....I still laugh when I think of it....'Laugh alone and the whole world thinks you're an idiot'. Thanks Trish for the L!!

Sleep claimed me quickly Saturday night and I slept for a straight 6 hours till about 8.25am before rushing to shower....breakfast was at 9am and check out had to be done by 9.30am!! Breakfast was pretty much the same except we had mushrooms which were....oh....average....but never the less....it was a hot cooked breakfast that I didn't have to prepare.

Sunday was my chatty day....I was tired....I was delirious.....I was a bit over scrapping....so I did an easy layout...a simple layout....large photo...minimal embellishments....and cut flowers out mindlessly, painted my chipboard swirlie in green first..then in chocolate and then sanded some of the chocolate back.....I kind of like the effect of the whole layout....one of my favs...
Before we knew....it was lunchtime...Quiche lorraine and salad.....and then time for Renata Watt's class with the sugar cubes with 3 cute little books inside. I haven't finished this so I will post it later on. It was sad saying bye to everyone, but I am sure we will meet again at the next scrapanalia retreat.

It was a hoot and a half getting to know some new friends:

Jen kept accusing me of scraplifting layouts in her head which was very amusing.

Felicity who is a great scrapper....you will find your style soon and it will all come to you very quickly. You're a natural at it and this girl won the prize for the best overall design!!!

Wendy...thanks for the hug and 'I can love u long time' too!!

Megan......you're a total crack up my girl.....can never ever forget the conversation about the pink heart getting bigger and the arrow pointing the way!

Anne Marie - She spent all weekend on the most gorgeous scrapware bag and album and it is just divine. She won the otp category as well as Scrapanalia Idol!!

Trish - absolutely cute and funny girlie who kept me down to earth and told me a few times that my work was crap and pointed out that I was procrastinating again. Love u girlie!!

Mich for being a very supportive friend and understanding roomie...sorry I kept you up Friday night. She did some fabulous layouts for her FK DT position (Congrats!!)...so there are a few she won't share yet.

Jacqui & Ange for their hilarious stories that kept my mood up!

Sofi and Shirley for their quiet inspiration....it was great getting to know u both better on the weekend!! Both girls did amazing layouts over the weekend!!! Oh, congrats to Shirley too for a tied first place for best single layout!!!

Long time no blog!!!

I am sooo sorry for being such a bad blogger!!!! LOL...I have been told repeatedly to update my blog...so here I am about to inundate my blog stalkers (cough cough splutter splutter) with more pics and tales of my adventures. Ok firstly....my last blog post was about Chinese New Year. Chinese New year celebrations go for 15 days starting with the eve which is called the reunion dinner. This year, for reunion dinner, we decided to have steam boat....yes...it was a crazy 38 degrees in Melbourne and we had to shop ridiculously early so that we got the freshest possible meat, veg and seafood plus avoiding the stampeding shopping crowd later on and escaping the heat. What is steam boat? Steam boat is an asian style savoury fondue....a pot (or in our case....2 pots) of hot stock simmers in the middle of the table on top of 2 portable gas stoves. And around the table, you will see an assortment of raw ingredients. We had chicken, pork, beef, rockling fish, prawns (cooked because we didn't like the look of the raw prawns), seafood tofu, lobster/fish balls, rice vermicelli, egg noodles, egg, vegies etc. The idea is to put raw things into the hot stock...wait till it is cooked, fish it out using small wire sieves and then dipping into our favourite sauces or spices before enjoying it. By the end of cooking all the meats and vegies, the stock will be soo tasty and we finish it off with noodles, a poached egg and some of the delicious stock. It is the kind of dinner that takes a couple of hours because you eat slowly and chat heaps while waiting for the next batch too cook or while waiting while your stomach expands so that you can stuff more in. LOL Thank goodness for air conditioning. We finished our meal off with fresh asian fruits, mangosteens (purple fruit), seed pearl mangoes, lychees, longans and chinese mandarins.

Ok...on the scrapping front:

my One Page at a Time (OPAAT) March kit layouts. I was sooo honoured to be chosen as featured designer with the talented Dayami this month and the kit I received was sooooo yummy!!!! It was a breeze coming up with the layouts ....I struggled a bit with the box....struggled with finding a purpose for the box....so in the end, I decided that I would use it as a keepsake box for Jeromel for 2007...so it will store art, birthday invitations, little boy treasures etc....he loves it!




Asides from those layouts....I also finished all my EDM layouts!!!

I will blog again in the next few days...I promise and tell you all about the fantabulous time I had at the Scrapanalia retreat!!

And the winner is.......

I am sooo sorry for the delay in posting the winner. It has been chaotic in the Enanoria household!!!

Ok....long list of reasons....firstly my computer died. Found it off one morning and couldn't turn it back on....it wouldn't even boot up!!!! Very sad!!! We used to have 4 computers in our computer room and recently downsized to 2. So, it was very sad to be down to 1 computer. DH tried to fix it using bits he had....but that didn't work. And he was adamant that he wasn't going to buy replacement bits for this old computer....so we were going to have to make do with 1 until we had money to buy another new one. Luckily Kylie came to my rescue when she offered her DH's assistance. It was a problem with the video card and $15 later...my computer was restored!! Thanks Rob!!!

This is soooo embarassing, but it is terrible how reliant I have become on my computer. All my email, my contacts, my blog links, msn messenger, ....and without my computer....I couldn't download my weekly dose of Greys Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Lost, Prison break, and Heroes!!! As soon as I came home...I backed up my email.....I started to download my shows!

Then my Dad came...so now both my parents are here, then somehow it dawned that Chinese New Year had some how snuck up on me....so there was house cleaning to do, chinese new year reunion dinner and first day celebrations to organise etc etc. We had a lovely chinese new years and will post more about that later.

But I better get down to business. What a thrill it was to get so many comments and so many people delurking!!! Thanks for saying Hi!!! The winner of my humble rak as drawn by the gorgeous Malinky is......

DEANNE!!!

Deanne, if you email your address to me, I'll get that RAK off to you in the next few days. If I have promised RAKs to anyone else, they'll be sent out soon too!!

Let's Crop for Kids!!!

This is a fabulous fundraising initiative to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital. Can it get any better? Is there a better way of spending Good Friday? You get to spend all day scrapping, shopping, winning prizes, eating, chatting and just soaking up the creative inspiration oooozing from everyone around you. This is a huge mojo gathering event....attend the crop and your mojo will be sooo energized and recharged!!

I will be donating one of my Scrapping Angels May Deluxe kit!!
Angel Carole and Angel Sofi have joined me in donating one of their kits as well!!
And the cherry on top of the cake is that everyone who attends will get 20% off their first Scrapping Angels kit!!! How awesome is that??? Huge thanks to Trish & Tara for their support.

Now of course....here are the important details loving cut and pasted from Mich:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are having an All Day Crop to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal. We would love for this to be a huge event within the Victorian Scrapbooking community and hope that you can all help us achieve our goal of donating a sizable amount to this very worthwhile cause.

Crop for Kids

The Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal

When: Friday 6th April 2007

Where: Mulgrave Community Centre

355 Wellington Road, Mulgrave (MelRef 80 D1)

Time: 10am - 5pm

Entry Fee: $25

We hope to reach our goal by holding raffles, auctions and competitions throughout the day. Please check back next week as we start to add some very exciting news about the event.

Also if anyone has any ideas or would like to help out please contact us at cropforkids@iprimus.com.au

The blog for this is Crop For Kids. So if you can add the link to your blog and help spread the word in forums and so on, that would be great. Even if you are not in Victoria, we can still use some donations and help in many ways.

An Announcement, exciting news and a prize!!!

First of all....my announcement. Yes.....I join the ranks of those mothers who saw their child off to school for the first day. I was very brave....had tissues in one hand and camera in the other...and didn't need the tissues at all!! Jeromel has been looking so forward to school and
his attitude towards school was fantastic...he was sooo ready. I'm glad I made the decision to keep him home for another year as he wasn't mentally, socially or physically ready to start Prep in 2006. He loves his new teacher and ran into the classroom and settled himself into an activity straight away. Last years transition program helped so much....they did an hour a week for terms 3 and 4....which is a fabulous program. Jeromel is in a class with 18 other children..and there is another child there who is anaphylactic to peanuts as well.
Ok...on to exciting news.....the fabulously talented Carole Janson's deluxe kit has been put up for sale on Scrapping Angels For those who are not familiar with how a deluxe kit works....you buy the kit which comes with cardstock, papers, embellishments AND instructions on how to do the 4 layouts and card that you see in the pic above. Yup yup yup...if you have ever wondered how Carole gets sooo much dimension and pop in her layouts....then you have to get this kit. But WAIT....there's more.....she will be online in the Scrapping Angels chat room on the28th Feb to chat with you....and help you if you are stuck or if you have any questions. How cool is that???

I am in the process of picking out my products for my deluxe kit which will launch in May!! Any one wants to do a class with me??

Ok.....done my announcement and my exciting news..now time for a prize. I've always wondered who reads my blog on a regular basis....who lurks but never comments? Let me entice you out of lurkedom with a rak prize. All you have to do is post a comment and I will get Jeromel to draw out a winner on the 9th Feb.

Layouts......

see...I did scrap!! Layouts from the fabulous One Page At a Time Feb kit.

When we got our sneak peeks of the Feb kit....I ooohed and aaahed
When I got my kit....the pink overwhelmed me....I had doubts....doubts if I could scrap 2 fabulous layouts with the kit contents........I found myself not able to stop at 2 layouts....I did 4 layouts and a card!!!

I'm going to blog again tomorrow...there will an announcement and exciting news.....there may even be a prize!!