Toy Society Christmas drop

Finally got around to making a toy to drop just before we went away. The toy society has had a big world wide christmas drop, over 180 toys hand made and dropped. love this idea as I have said before.

I didn't venture far this time as we had visitors arrivng and the genral madness of Christmas limited my options - so down to a local park to drop my little doll off. This was a pattern from the original softies book and she came out quite well I think.

Glad to be back in peaceful Canberra but it was lovely to go swimming whenever we wanted at Mum and dad's place. More pictures soon (including my beautiful new niece x).

Secret santa and Katie's birthday

This post is for Jo xx


For Katie from me

Katie also scored this in the secret santa (these two patterns are from this book)

Ros has a wonderful way with the flowers from her garden

One of my fav's - the card from Jo

And more pretties from the felties book made by Jodie - so cute


A couple of weeks ago we had our celebration for lovely Katie's birthday in combination with our Christmas celebrations. Secret santa was a highlight - we are certainly getting to know each other and a few of us made some handmade stuff.

The conversation, which shall never be repeated, was an eye opener to say the least. Katie (who we love x) knows how to start a interesting line of discussion. Love these girls so very much.

sketchy thursday

A nice simple sketch this week from sketchy Thursday - probably my last one for the year as we will be away for most of the next week. I have loved doing their sketches this year, I think doing some of these challenges has helped my scrapping both in terms of actually sitting down and getting some done as well as stretching me in my ideas.

This was taken on the last day of the year. Henry was completely wiped out at the end of term and very upset that his lovely teacher was leaving the school as well. He was getting a bit teary as we walked to the car and he said he nearly cried in class when his teacher was saying goodbye but that was quickly forgotten (for a little while at least) when he discovered the latest edition of his Lego club magazine waiting in the car - ah thank heavens for little distractions.

Have finished Christmas shopping yay - and just need to finish a couple of projects off at home. Today I will be making a toy or two if I get a roll on for the Toy society Christmas drop. They have already logged over 120 toys around the world - I really love this idea and it is so much fun to do.

Have a good day xx

SPPC # 28

SPCC colours this week - bordering blue, always artichoke and pumkin pie.

I thought I would have trouble with these colours - orange isn't my thing but I am so pleased with the way this lo has turned out. My artichoke colour should possibly be a bit more green but the greyer colour highlights the grey of the temple.

These people were paid to pose with the many tourists around in their traditional outfits - not sure why one is dressed in a cowboy outfit though... Absolutely beautiful costumes and the people are beautiful but they weren't overly happy when Geoff snapped this more casual pose - but it is one of my favourite photos of our afternoon at Angkor Wat (can't recommend that place enough, it is astonishing)

Oh my

It's that time of year again. The kids at Matt's school are not allowed to have hair of an unnatural colour - although I think a few 'sun kissed streaks' do sneak in. So at the end of the yaer Matt wants to change his hair - I think he has a bit of his fathers attention seeking desire in there somewhere.

This year was supposed to be 'Nordic blonde', sort of white really, but as per usual this is not quite what happened and we ended up with more 'Viking Gold'. But he gets the reactions he wants and at a party on Sat night he said the girls kept touching his hair so what more could a 17yo want - I guess he has to have some recompense for the fact that his family burst into laughter every time he enters the room and he has now acquired the nickname Goldilocks.

sketchy thursday

Really enjoyed playing with this sketch. I have been wanting to do this photo of Henry for ages - it needed some pink in the lo - how can you have fairy floss without pink! But Henry hates pink so it could only be a touch.

Laura received my handmade Christmas ornament and the felties and her very pretty daughter fell in love with them (see her gorgeous picture here). Really enjoyed making these and glad they were going to someone I have gotten to know over the past few months x.

Made a couple of other little ornaments for the Christmas gathering/Katie's birthday celebration, will show some of those when I get organised (sigh - when will this happen, possibly not in my time!)

SPPC #27

Another challenge site, SPPC, this time based on colour combos. This week was brocade blue, bashful blue and kraft. Here is my take, the blues did not come up well in the photos, they are not as green as they look, if that makes sense!

. I have had this photo printed out for ages, I never had my ears pierced for one reason or another (ok I was a bg chicken). So for my 40th I trotted down to our lovely local chemist and got them done.

I think Geoff was happy because a whole new (easy) avenue of present buying had opened up for him.

This is it

Up until today this has been my sole christmas decoration - I think I am in denial.

Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will be swimming in tinsel... x

Felties

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Found a nice little book by Nelly Pailloux called felties and it has a bucket load of these little cuties. They are so easy to make, very quick, always good to find something to do while watching tv. I think the polar bear is my fav. I think this must be the book Jodie used to make her little Babushka dolls for her daughters birthday, a very good idea for a party load of just teens to take home in a party bag.

Meaghan finished school yesterday with presentation night last night. Matt's finishes today and his presentation night is tonight - luckily I don't have to attend that one as Matt isn't getting any awards and due to lack of space, parents aren't encouraged to attend unless their child is receiving something - yay. Henry still has until the end of next week to go, but it's all good as far as he's concerned although it is getting harder to get him out of bed in the morning.

have a great day, christmas shopping today I think...

The Ugly Bug Ball

Henry's year group has been studying bugs all term, much to the delight of Henry and his friends. To celebrate the end of topic (concentrating on all important Christmas celebrations for the rest of the year) he teachers and kids put on a concert. Dressing up was optional but encouraged. Henry decided at the last minute to go as a bee. Luckily Matt had also dressed as a bee many years ago so I had a fair idea of a quick costume, with wings, a stinger and duct tape stripes on his top.

The assembly with the concert was one of the most enjoyable ones I had been to. The kids sang half a dozen songs with Henry's favourite - 'the redback on the toilet seat' - spiders AND toilet humour how could you go wrong with that!!

I used a Sketchy Thursday sketch for this lo, kept it fairly simple as the background of the photos made it hard to see his costume and any more coloured papers just made Henry less obvious - and we can't be having that!

happy first day of summer

windy and I had the heater on this morning, could this year get any more bizarre?

I think the weather has affected our local politicians as the Liberals seem intent on imploding themselves by electing Tony Abbott (for my occasional overseas readers, he is a right leaning, climate change denier when it suits him - oddly enough at election time he wasn't denying it, sitting on his surfboard - nice photo opp, can I see a political hypocrite or am I a wee bit cynical?) as their leader, What are they thinking? Serves them right when they get wiped off the board next election...

On a less ranting note, the latest Designer Digitals desktop freebie (here) has been put up and utilised, as above. They also have a nice little sale starting today. The photo is of Henry last christmas with his very favourite toy that is still getting a good workout on our hotter days.

my new "twinkly" theory

Ok, having watched twilight and then discussed it with Jo (go check out her work here, very cool) I have developed my own theory on which movie stars I like and why. The theory goes something like this - actors I don't like generally take them selves to seriously, whereas the ones I like seem to have look in their eye that says, I know it's only a movie, the world won't end if I stop acting. This twinkle seems to develop with age, I am trying to think of an actor under 30 who has it. The girl who plays Alice in twilight, the twins in Harry Potter and Abigail Breslin, with very little thought or research that's it.

So here is my lists of twinkly and non twinkly actors

Twinkly
Johnny Depp (oh yes..)
George Clooney
Brad Pitt (still developing with age)
Cary Grant
Meryl Streep
Hugh grant
Colin Firth
Julia Roberts
Ewan mcgregor
Will Smith
Harrison Ford
Gary Oldman
just about all english Actors
Robert Downey Jnr
Toni Collette
Hugh Jackman


Non twinkles
Sorry but just about everyone in twilight (all too young and serious, good looking yes but no sparkly bits...)
Tom Cruise (I think he had it but has lost it big time)
Nicole Kidman
Orlando Bloom
Keira Knightly
Val Kilmer (although this may be changing)


Actors I like who I wish would twinkle
Ed Norton
Angelina
Russell Crowe
Heath Ledger (I know sadly too late)
Keanu Reeves


Any input would be greatly appreciated.

PS I hope you all just realise this is just an excuse to put a picture of Johnny Depp on my blog..

sketchy thursday

our main computer has died so am resorting to Geoff's laptop - none of my settings or passwords for so many sites are on this one. very frustrating. No mouse either which i have to say is slowing me down somewhat...

Yes, I have finally gotten around to watching twilight. I enjoyed the movie more than the books, which I don't think were particularly well written. Some aspects of the movie were disappointing, ie the special effects looked half hearted and a couple of the characters weren't well cast but i guess that what happens. managed to have morning tea with Jo, who is a Twimum, and we will go see new moon together soon.

On the plus side I have read Mao's last dancer, loved it so much, can't wait to see that movie. Am also reading Eat, pray love and also enjoying that as well. I have heard the criticism that the author is annoyingly selfish but i think if I had no children, was getting over a marriage breakup and was being paid to travel, then so be it, off you go. she writes so well, very enjoyable.

And lastly this is the latest sketch from sketchy Thursday. Henry managed his first outdoor swim of the season when we were down visiting Poppy. The temp was heading towards 40, although the pool water temp was considerably less. I hung around the steps with my feet in, while Henry bounded from side to side.

it's a girl

Congratulations to me , I'm an auntie again!!

I suppose some credit can go to Trace (esp Trace, pushing our 9lb10 of baby can't be easy!!), Rob and Emma. A new baby girl - Holly Jade - was born just before lunch today. yay.

a story to read

This was a pictureless challenge for the weekend. The trip was a diasaster from beginning to end - these are just some of the highlights - much more went on (none of it good) but a trip to remember and laugh about (we actually got to the laughing within weeks -probably coinciding with retrieving our stuff from Jindabyne - aaahh, the resilience of youth).

Am just about to hop on my bike and attempt to get tickets to see Twilight - not New Moon. I suspect I am the only female over the age of 12 who has yet to see the movie and they are showing it at the cinemas just before New Moon is released, so I am off with Jo to see it.

I am feeling quite pleased with myself this morning. I have decided that if I see something that really annoys me, then I will do something about it. Our local government website, where you pay rates etc was badly designed and very difficult to get to the actual paying part without much swearing and ending up at the truck drivers licencing aite (I don't know why but that is where I always ended up...).
So I wrote a very rude email to which I recieved a very terse reply (probably deservedly). I apologised for my first email and more calmly pointed out the poor design features of their site. Today I recieved an email from the poor man I had harangued, with a list of changes that had been made, and now I can get where I want to go with only one or two clicks and no swearing. Maybe I should get that truck drivers licence after all - if only I could find it...


And Trace went into hospital at 10pm last night and still no news yet (10am here now). I hope it is all going well but she had a very long labour first time so I hope they don't let her go to far this time. My longest labour was 9 hours so I can't begin to imagine a long labour. I will let you know as soon as I hear x
have a good day

I'm back and just about all scrapped out

Turns out my father had a mild heart attack last Sunday so Henry and I had a quick trip down south. Dad was in Wangaratta hospital and then taken to Melbourne for tests. He had a blockage so they put in a stent (all with a local anaesthetic) and he was home again on Saturday. It was, to put it mildly, stinking hot, but they have a pool so Henry made use of that.

It made me realise the advantage of living in a small country town. The phone calls and visits, both to Mum at home and dad in hospital (55kms away)all helped make dad feel better. when none of Dad's family could pick him up from Melbourne, one of his friends drove down, picked him up and brought him home, where they were greeted with a casserole to take home by his wife. All good.

the only down side was that my new nephew/niece was due (in the same hospital) last weekend and they still haven't put in an appearance. Poor Trace must be getting very sick of it by now. Inducement on Wednesday if nothing happens in the meantime.

Back home and The Studio has had a huge weekend of scrapping with challenges every two hours over 48hours. To participate and be eligible for some of the wonderful prizes you had to donate to The Water charity, which brings access to clean water in underdeveloped nations. So far have scrapped 10 pages and maybe able to get two more in before the deadline. These are some of my fav's so far.
Monica McNeills 6 word journalling

The wonderful (and probably now exhausted) organiser, Amanda's vintage challenge

Lovely Laura's favourite place challenge

stacey Julians freehand heart challenge

Sketchy Thursday Sketch plus water theme challenge.

quick post

Hi everyone, just to let you know I will be out of town for a couple of days. Dad has had some health issues and Henry and I are making a quick trip to see him.

Hopefully
a) will be back for twilight fair and charity weekend for the Studio (see here - was hoping to blog about this more this week maybe friday) and
b) my new niece/nephew (due yesterday) is born very very soon as Trace is going to deliver in the same hospital where dad is.

have a good week xx

matt the actor part 2

Here he is in full regalia as Bishop Ridcully and with The Patrician. He loved the hat...

sketchy thursday

I like this sketch a lot.

The castle is a playground in the middle of the main park in town. Lots of rocks, looks dangerous but the kids love it. They closed it down a couple of years ago and we thought it was going the way of all older playgrounds that were deemed unsafe but they added padding to the groung and a few more saftey rails and it is practically the smae. Henry thinks it is wonderful, lots of tunnels that led in different direction and a nice Henry sized hidey hole. Wonderful place...

Matt the actor

Matt made his acting debut last night. After what seems like months of rehearsals, the school play opened last night. It is a Terry Pratchett play - The Truth - one of Matt's favourite authors, hence his keenness to be involved. It has been one of the school experiences he will never forget and he is feeling a bit regretful that it took this long to discover the theatrical field. He has three or four small parts, including a fully regaled bishop. He is not too keen on the makeup but is getting used to it.
last night apparently went well (we are going tonight and tomorrow night), with a few nerves but all well after his first line. can't wait to see it and I think Matt will sleep for a week afterwards.

Then he has to get on with the serious business of HSC....

a visitor

Our carport is open on one side and it has plants and a lot of leaf litter right next to where the cars are parked. When i arrived home the other day, I hopped out the car and heard a rustling noise about a metre away from where i was standing. I looked closely and the first thing I saw was brown scales - after jumping as high as was humanly possible, I saw that there were legs as well - phew. Snakes I don't want to have to deal with - blue tongues are a more than welcome addition to the yard.

This one was the biggest I had seen (more than 40cm), so he must have a nice safe home somewhere nearby. He bolted into next door's front yard but I don't think he will stay there for long as they have two dogs now. I suspect Wally (our cat) is more than happy to let him be but the dogs probably wouldn't.

I hope he comes out when the kids are home one day.

sketchy thursday

The latest sketch from sketchy thursdays and my take on it. It is about my Meaghan and how very friendly and outgoing she is at the moment. I hope (desperately) that this continues over the years. She spent the day at her school fete, mostly on the rides, with her friends. The rest of us couldn't go so it was great that she is old enough to go without us - the new phone has allowed some more freedom for her.

The papers are from the October Cocoa daisy kit, with the flower from the October challenge on the Studio site. They chose my Lego lo for their DT pick for the first couple of weeks of October - very pleased about that.

The time is getting close for my new niece/nephew to arrive in the world, good luck Trace, thinking of you and getting excited.

a rare double lo

Quick off the mark for Ali's class this week. In honour of my most amazing friends, no more to be said. (Click on the image to read the journalling.)

Recovering at the moment from a self inflicted injury at the moment. In a fit of family togetherness we all went outside for a game of tips after tea last night. By the time i got there it had become keepings off with a giant ball. It was a lovely night weather wise and we all had a lot of fun. Just as the game was winding down, i tackled Geoff, foot first (Ok I kicked him), forgetting I only had sandals on - doh! I am now down to half a big toenail on my right foot. Will I ever learn that myself and ball games do not mix?

ali's class this week

Just a quick one. Ali's class is going well, this is half of this weeks template, hopefully get the other half (which is very similar) done today. Ali has gotten hold of an Anna Aspnes kit for the class as well (I have used some in this lo - the stitching, clock, tape) which is wonderful as I love her stuff. With the templates, word art and extras, as well as the tutorials, this class is turning out to be good value for money.

random thoughts from a lonely saturday night

This book was one of my childhood favourites. When I had Matt I reclaimed some of my childhood books and was disappointed that this was no longer among them. turns out mum had been through all the books and given some away, including this one - sigh. I have been searching through old bookstores since on the off chance someone had it but no luck. Little Golden books has started reprinting old titles and again I lived in hope but had all but given up. Out of a now long established habit, I glanced at the Little golden book stand and there it was - hooray. At the grand price of $2.95 I reclaimed my childhood.

When I rang Mum to let her now, she too had been in a different big w and had searched through the Little golden books as unbeknown to me, she has also been looking over the years (ok, I may have made a bit of fuss at the time she gave away the original) - she had had no luck though. Nice coincidence and now we can happily walk past little golden books undisturbed again.

More random thoughts (I am practially alone, Geoff has taken Meaghan and Henry to the coast and I am babysitting Matt)

- just finished twilight for the first time - i can see the addictiveness, now I will have to watch the movie.

- went to the movies this afternoon and saw Julie and Julia - go see it - just a nice movie where the audience chuckled all the way through.

- i have been trying not to say anything but the time has come ---- Ok,here goes. I really, really didn't like the da Vinci code book. The breaking point was where two of the top code breakers in the world couldn't read mirror writing aggh, stupid, stupid. Oddly enough I quite liked the movie where my expectations were not very high but i though it made a much better movie than a book. I am avoidig his new book as much as I can. ( related-I tried to like the time travellers wife, but I just didn't although her new one does look good)

- must go my favourite male bollywood star, Shahrukh Khan is on tele in a very attractive red plaid coat, no one does pretend dag better) and I don't think I've seen this one - love bollywood esp the comedies although Devdas is one of my favouritist movies and it is seriously tragic (but very lush)
ahh the dancing has started, time to concentrate...

have a good saturday wherever you are xx

Last night

Geoff and I went to see Elvis Costello (birthday/fathers day present). He is an amazing performer, when they said solo, that is exactly what it was. he played for about an hour and a half by himself and one of his many guitars - no backing band, singers, anyone (except for the sound guys). It took him a while to warm up, the first few songs were a bit rusty but when he started on new variations of his better known songs, it was great. Being by himself also gave him more opportunity to talk to the crowd a bit more - and I think he likes a chat. My favourite for the night could have been 'she' (best known, I guess for being in Notting Hill), very beautiful.

I was a bit sad at the end of it all because I had a sudden realisation (and this is one of those 'oh my god. I am getting old' moments) that all the concerts we go to now are in theatres. No more do we fight crowds in student unions, or jostle for best position in a pub (or memorably in a scout hall where we saw Violent Femmes in Brisbane). Nope all fixed seating from now on. Although having said that, the first concert I went to as a very young 17yo, was in a movie theatre in Albury to see INXS in 1985. Possibly still the best concert I have seen - maybe that's just through rose coloured time warp glasses.


Oh well, at least we are actually getting out and about again, even if it is in old fogey mode...