New Southern Girls Challenge

Three posts in three days - some sort of record!(edit - blogger was playing up yesterday and refused to let me play so technically it is 3 posts in 4 days...). Today is Southern Girls Challenge reveal day and I really like this one. The theme this week is childhood and I have happily used a couple of images from one of this weeks sponsors, Digi Stamp Characters by Heather Ellis.

So very cute!

And our other sponsor is Mad for Markers, which supplies those lovely Copic markers.

Here is my little effort, me with daisy chains at 2.

And I also used some bits from the wonderful package that arrived from Little Bits of Pretty the other day. Such a wonderful generous idea, with all funds from the packs going to Westmead Children's Hospital. She has nearly reached her goal of $1000 - how cool is that?? This is the loveliness that greeted me when I opened my pack -



And the background vintage paper I used on my Lo came from Little Women, one of my most repeatedly read book when I was a child (along with Anne of Green Gables of course). So ties in beautifully with the childhood theme (although to be slightly realistic, I wasn't quite up to reading much when I was 2...). Go check out Lea's stuff, just love it!

Other things now - I am just putting together the list of names to be drawn for my June blog love prizes. I am completely slack and can guarantee that I will let you know the winners early next week because the draw probably won't happen before Monday. But it will happen!

And soon I will have photos up from our trivia night at our local school last night. It was an 80's theme (and we all know that is my decade) . Our ordered well in advance t shirts did not arrive - grrrr - fully expecting them to arrive a today! But we rose to the occasion in both dress and brain power and came out victorious on the night!! Hooray - much celebrations to be had esp after many years of coming 4th .

Well off to wash out several tons of hair product out of my very attractive morning after the night before hair - always a good look...

xxx

Frosty mornings

This is what we have been waking up to this week


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But that also leads top beautiful clear blue sky days, love this side of winter. (these were taken after 9 in the morning, must get out earlier to get better winter photos)

Very last minute entry into My favourtite things this week. But I really wanted to document this picture by Henry when he was in kindy. Love the fact that he drew himself as a hunchbacked mini-me version of his Dad. This was the year that he burst into tears every time his teacher asked him to colour anything, so to get a fully finished picture was somewhat miraculous!



I am currently sitting waiting for a couple of t-shirts to arrive for our 80's trivia night tomorrow night. They were supposed to be here by yesterday at the latest but I am having flash backs to Matt's formal where his suit arrived a day late... Fingers crossed.

Have a great day xx

June Trifecta and a couple of other things

It's the end of the month so that means it's trifecta time at the Dollhouse! We need you to include these colours



Use Karen's fab sketch
And be summery, very easy with that colour scheme.
and here is mine


With a close up of Henry, desperate to convince us that the life jacket fitted and he could go canoeing on the dam. But as soon as he sat down, a very wee problem - who needs to breathe? We got our own kayak not long after this along with a jacket that fitted him perfectly.So show us your summery creations!

Last Friday night, we finally made it out to celebrate Jo's birthday (sadly, Louise was sick so we have to put off her celebrations for a while)-

Gorgeous Girl Jo!!
We went to a great little restaurant, Pistachio's- always good food - highly recommended if you venture Canberra way.


And here is what I made for her pressie -



It's a straw holder, converted (for the moment until her children get their hands on it!) into a pencil holder. I love the Studio 45 Images and this one reminded me of Jo... (or a constant reminder of me??)
Lots of fun making this. If you haven't checked out Jo's blog, please go visit, she has an amazing brooch up there this week - such a very talented artist!

If you entered last weeks Southern Girls challenge - thank you. We had so many challenge entries (over 400!!) that it was nearly impossible to comment on them all (only magical Julie has that ability - does she ever sleep??). So I will try to get to some of you and comment but please don't be offended if we don't! We love your work and between us we have at least visited all entries.

A new challenge will be up on Thursday and I have used some goodies I just got in the mail from Little Bits of Pretty, a wonderful generous lady who has put together some very cool packs, with all money going to Westmead Children's hospital. I will put some photo up with the next challenge.

Last, if you are still with me, even longer than my usual ramblings, sorry. Last week to enter my giveaway. I have started following some very talented ladies and I am so pleased that many of you have too. Had such fum with this, please come and enter if you haven't - details if you click the sidebar piccy.

have a great day xxx

Rain!

Today this is my view -




and I am loving it! Not heavy spectacular rain, but cold, light rain that makes me stay inside.

I know many, many people have had too much rain but we have had less than half and inch in well over three months. So I love rainy days. Esp when I can mostly stay indoors (fingers crossed it is still raining this afternoon so we can skip Henry's soccer training..

Only downside is the cat smells like wet fur, not my most favourite of smells. And he insisted on waking us up in the middle of the night with another dead mouse. He yowls constantly until Iget up and aknowledge what a clever cat he is, Ignoring him is not an option. Luckily he is an outside cat so the dead mice stay outside, unluckily this means venturing outside on very, very cold winter nights just to give him a pat!

Ok this weeks Design Dollies challenge is up and running, this time another sketch from Karen B

Another versatile sketch.

And I have used a rainy photo from a couple of years ago, lovely coincidence.

Henry does love his umbrella.

Also love the hand stitched tag by Amy Tangerine that came in the latest Studio Calico Kit. There is a post here about it, so much hard work, so many tags...

So cme on over and play with us at the Dollhouse!!

And while you are at it, join it up with the Southern Girls challenge - Anything Goes this fornight and it can be combined with other challenges so you have no excuses!

Have a snuggly warm day! xx

DMZ Vietnam

Happy Monday!! Hope you had a great weekend, we had the usual soccer/kids socialising/Henry injuring himself (falling off his ripstick) weekend here. And I managed a stupid minor burn to myself by attempting to cut open a hot chicken kiev with a blunt knife, only to succeed in covering myself with very hot garlic and butter sauce - genius..

I actually got half an hour talking scrapping with Francine and ordered some more Tim Holz distressing ink, hooray!

And I finally finished this page which I have been working on for the past few days. Love this photo. It was taken on the day we toured around Vietnam, visiting military sites. A really interesting day, which may have only been improved if the guide we had paid for had turned up instead of just the taxi driver whose English was only marginally better than our Vietnamese...


I used this weeks sketch over at one of my favourite Greek sites, Get Creative, love their stuff!!

Isn't this such a cool sketch??

On a side note, I usually scan my flatter Lo's, esp if the day is dim like today. I take photos of the lumpy ones as the shadows from the scanner make them look quite dodgy. So i scanned this one, two perfectly good halves, and applied my usual photo merge in photoshop, normally a great result. Today it gave me this back in return -

-Huhhh! So I ended up merging the two halves by hand, a bit of a pain. Hopefully photoshop will come and play a little nicer next time...

And i have to apologise for whinging about public transport last week - we are so spoilt here, buses are clean and pretty cheap and really I only had to walk a block to get home. I had promised myself to stop complaining about little things this month, so rap on the knuckles for me.

Complaining about big things like our political leaders however is a whole different story...

(be very glad you don't live here and have to listen to me complain about them every time the news comes on, but I guess again compared to Greece we have it pretty easy as well.)

Have a great day xx

Ahh The Summers of my youth..

I remember you- vaguely...

Hot, dusty, where the best summer tip was to get so sunburned that you peeled and that gave you a great tan for the rest of summer - the highest sun factor sunscreen was +4 (ahh Le Tan) or white zinc but that was only for the nose. Although I did notice we are wearing shirts in the pool so the sun must have been very hot on this day.

I loved it.


The Design Dollies challenge this week is to have a summer theme to your work. As it is less than summery here, I headed back in time to the time we had our pool on the farm. Lots of fun (making whirlpools that made Dad very unhappy..).

lots of Crate paper and the gorgeous sewing pattern flower is from Tessa's etsy store.


I'm sure there are lots of summery Lo's out there so come and play with us, please!! We will love you for it ;)

A quick note about a giveaway that has been bought to my attention - it is fairly major. Over at Channa's blog she is having a clear out and has lots and lots to give away, it is eye popping. Go check it out. She has some beautiful LO's on her blog as well, have a look!

Grocery shopping, picking up Henry and then home to play with my Cocoa daisy and studio calico kits which have arrived - hooray!!

Have a great day! xx

Very Odd Friday

During the week, on the Cocoa Daisy forum, there was a discussion on whether or not you use public transport. Having spent far too long on buses as a school kid (about 2 hours per day - good for reading - not much else), I swore I would never use buses again - well Ok, except when we were overseas and that was the only option...

So what happened today, I used the bus. Car in for service, Geoff in meetings, no alternative. Sigh. An hour on two buses instead of 15 minutes in the car... No more needs to be said.

And the plumbers are still here, digging a large hole in our back yard. sigh.


But as I cannot do any washing etc, I can do some scrapping. So the only photos I have taken in a couple of weeks (very bad) has been of Henry playing tennis on wednesday when the wind chill factor made the temp minus 4. It didn't seem right sending him off to play tennis in thick jumpers, gloves and a beanie...


I only took a couple of very ordinary photos before my lovely warm car beckoned me back, hmm does this make me a bad mother, and why am I asking this question a lot lately??? Oh well he enjoyed it (at least that is what I convinced him).

Using the latest Sketchy Thursday Sketch and lot s of fun digi stuff (new steam Punk Brushes by Jodie Lee available on the Jessica Sprague site).


And we have to wish Leah, one of the founding Dollies, a very Happy Birthday. Karen asked us to whip us a little something to help celebrate and I went digi again (falling back in love with digi..) with this -

So happy Birthday Leah!

And for those who have nominated more blogs to put on my list, thank you!! I am finding some very talented and interesting people out there. I will update again soon as I have a couple more to add to the list - please go check them out and become new followers - you will seriously put a big grin on these ladies faces!!

have a great day xxx

My favourite Childhood Toy

My Favourite things challenge site has come up with another irresistible topic - my fav childhood toys.
I was not a dolly girl, I did have a few barbies (with noses bitten off, thanks little brother, and yes I know i will never let you forget..), my fav doll was a bride doll I got one Christmas. I don't remember getting it but she certainly was a big part of my childhood memories. Mum made some clothes for her and she needed her hair washed so often that it became a bit of an over bleached tangle. Mum tried to resurrect her for my wedding, just for the car but she was beyond help. She is still tucked away somewhere. Wasn't she beautiful??

And I'm guessing I got the nurses dress up that chrismas as well.


This Lo uses mostly Crate Paper, I am so completely addicted to this company and their products...

Our plumber is here digging up our back yard at the moment, he thinks that the long awaited collapse of our pipes has finally occurred. Luckily it is in the far back corner under our unused vege patch so nothing major will be sacrificed. And tomorrow we take the car in for major service/replace front light (again, 5 headlights between two cars in less than 12 months is a bit much to bear!) and finally, hopefully fix our stuck drivers seat.

Could be an expensive week...

have a great day. xx

It is hard...

When all the sites I love are in the Northern Hemisphere and they are all moving into summer mode and it is very cold and windy here...

Oh well it is the shortest day of the year in a fortnight - it all gets better then... doesn't it???

Today the Dollies challenge is colour, and yes they are lovely and bright and cheerful,

.chosen by the lovely Wendi who is also supplying the terrific prize -
Love this prize pack - maybe I can enter under a false name.. hmmm.

But as I am a Dollie here is my sample from a photo that is several years old now - 2007 seems like yesterday though - sigh.

So go check out the other Dollies work and come and play. I was thrilled that some ladies chose to lift me last week, so very cool. Winners announced soon.

Don't forget to check out my blog love give away here. I will put it in my side bar so I don't keep nagging on about it.

have a great day - I hope it is warm and peaceful wherever you are. xx

June Blog Love give away

Problem:

So I cleaned out my scrapping supplies last week and it hit me - boy do I have a lot of card stock and how much card stock do I use? Not much at all...

Well I love white and black and that's about it. I know I should use this to push me into using more coloured stuff but really it is not my style right now. And even if it was, I have more than I could possibly use in the near (or far) future.

Solution:

I have THREE of these packs to giveaway, international entries more than welcome! Each pack has 25 different coloured card stocks, plus one coredinations/jillibean soup dimensions piece, plus one Prima paintable and one Lush flocked patterned paper (each pack is slightly different but the numbers will be the same)

Way to get your hands on this stash:

Ok I have made it slightly tricky but hopefully you will get inspired by others. To go into the draw for a chance at one of these packs, I would like you to become a new follower of someone - anyone (Not me although I would love it if you did of course!!), it doesn't really matter who and leave them an encouraging comment - because we all love comments!! Then leave your name and who you are now following in the comments here and I will draw three winners on July 1.

And if you become a follower of someone who has less than 30 followers then you will go into the draw twice (just leave a little '30' in brackets on your entry here). And an extra entry if you mention me on your blog (please pass the word around).

Not the most exciting of give aways (I know...) but we all, scrappers and cardmakers, alike use the basics and it would make me very happy to clear out my stash just a little....

So go find someone new to follow!!

xxx

Ps I may get more organised and put a list of blogs that I like that
have less than 30 followers, so let me know if you fall into this category and I be happy to put you on my list.

The List:
Mitralee
(completely gorgeous stuff)
Francine
(a real life, up close and personal friend and very talented scrapbooker)
Joanna
(love the digi!)
Kazza
(fellow Southern Girl Dt and has the most beautiful work)
Helen
(fab cards)
pigikalimer
(this is in greek, very cute stuff)
Kathleen
(brand new blogger, sweet cards)
Beezy Bee
(love this jewellery)
Olympia
(another fab Greek scrapper)
Victoria
(go check out her great tutorials on some very cool techniques)
Sandra
(an lovely card maker enjoying her life in Spain, sigh)
Gwen
(this is a seriously talented scrapper! go see!!)

more to come.. x

I am loving finding all these new blogs!

A Christmassy post

Yep, it's winter here. Oddly enough we have had a couple of lovely warm days - much better weather than we saw over autumn. This will cease soon, so we appreciate while we can...

To celebrate the colder weather, Southern Girls is going Christmassy. So time to scrap those Christmas photos or get ready with some christmas cards (I am so not ready for that sentence..).

the girls have put together some wonderful work as always. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

As we spent Christmas last year in a Buddhist nation, the day was very strange. After Santa had been, we pretty much forgot about it and spent the day wandering around Luang Prabang (making sure we weren't wearing matching clothes this time - lesson learnt!). It is actually a very nice way to spend Christmas - no stress and still with family.

I am still organising my card stock to have a bit of a giveaway this month, stay tuned.
Off you go now and get those Christmas entries coming in.

And please pop into Design Dollies, there are two weeks worth of comps up at the moment and some very good prizes to be had.

have a good friday xx