Year 8 Social

Finally have gotten (sort of) permission to use a photo from the night of Meaghan's social. This was on face book so I grabbed it, did the Lo and then received gracious permission from the daughter to publish...

Meaghan is right in the middle with two sets of the peace sign up - her fall back sign if poking her tongue out isn't an option.

Went for the trifecta for Design Dollies this week, -
-the colour scheme, white, kraft and pink.

-the elements
-1) Lace
2) The color PINK
3) Stripes
4) A crown (handy the girls were wearing crowns...)
5) TWO 3-d elements (or more)

and of course the sketch. really like this sketch, although I ended up only using one photo instead of two. Quite happy with the result.

First semi of Eurovision on our tele tonight - love it. Will miss the second semi as I am off with some friends to see an Abba cover band concert, so appropriate but will be watching the final on Sunday night. This means avoiding the news all day as it isn't on live and also making the decision whether to watch Dr Who or eurovision!! (Ok, easy as i will record the good Dr).

My favs so far are Iceland and Albania but really last year will be hard to top, loved Alexander and his violin. And of course the bonus of Henry, all of 6 at the time, singing to himself -'years ago when I was younger..."

have a great weekend, xx

Saigon Zoo

Trying to complete the never ending holiday that was Vietnam (so many, many photo's)....

Our last afternoon in Ho Chi Minh City, we wandered across a very busy highway to get to the Saigon Zoo. It was like the Zoos I remember as a child, very small cages, up close and personal with the animals. Not PC at all and very sad. It was hard to know there was a better way without trying to force western sensibilities onto this place. We can only hope that education is getting through and the zoo will improve with time. The elephants and the large cats were the saddest sights of all, pacing and swaying is a way of life for them.





Used a couple of sketches from a couple of my favourite sites at the moment. The Sugar Cane LO sketch is from Design Dollies. Another digital effort, haven't been doing many lately but was desperate to use a kit I got from Little Dreamer designs (Travel the World, Asia). Really like the papers and stickers in this kit, very cute.



The double Lo(!!) is for Sketchy Thursday. I think the I only do doubles for holiday pages. Found it hard to get my head around it, not sure of the result...

Anyway have a great tuesday/wednesday, wherever you may roam. xx

Where the Wild things are...

Last Friday I went on a magical not so mystery tour with Henry's class to the National Art Gallery (love living in Canberra were such a place is only 15minutes on a bus). On the short trip from the class to the bus I was befriended by one of the kids I hadn't had much to do with, I only really knew him by reputation, which I have to say wasn't good...

He asked whose mother I was and then told me he argued with his Mum ALL the time. Then he sat with me on the bus, turned to me and said 'I have anger management issues". OK, this is a 7 year old boy and my heart broke for him. The teachers told me later he just doesn't have any one who listens to him, very sad. I do however, now know everything there is to know about pro wrestling about which he was passionate and hoped to be one when he grew up. He was truly amazed his hero could get up after being hit by two tables, I shared his wonder for the bus trip.

The kids (year 1 and 2's) were better than I thought throughout the gallery. the guide we had managed to focus the group in a very constructive way, and seems to engage the boys in our group better than the few girls we had. After lunch in the outside sculpture garden, our class headed into the tranquility garden, magical place, water and palm trees with a path winding throughout. I'm glad there was no one else there because it wasn't terribly tranquil once the class swarmed in!

The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a rush but Henry is keen to go back and I am so glad I went.

The gardens were the only place we could take photo's and it reminded me of Maurice Sendaks book with monsters in the forest. The Lo is inspired by the latest Design Dollies colour challenge (blue, green, white and brown).




I manged to finish another 2 Lo's today, firstly for SPCC with the following colours:

Back to my childhood and the sunflower field that Dad planted one year. dad liked to dabble in the unusual while farming and this was nearly successful except for the hailstorm that hit just before harvest - doh. Luckily it was fully insured so nothing lost.



And lastly for The Studio, to scrap something that makes you laugh. At the moment that is definitely Henry, he loves to parrot his brother and sister, mostly in the right context but occasionally not. Very funny boy.


Just another reminder, the latest Butterfly Crafts written challenge is up with a great, huge prize pack from Nikki Sivils is up for grabs. Go check it out, well worth the effort.

Have a good day xx

Quick post

A cold morning here but hoping for another glorious Canberra day, so happy to live here on days like the weekend (sunny, no wind at all, just perfect).

Meaghan had her year 8 social on Friday night and although I was allowed to take a couple of photos, for the grandparents, (and she looks sooo pretty) it was under pain of death that I was ABSOLUTLY NOT ALLOWED to make a Lo or put them up on my blog AT ALL, EVER!!! So I might give it 6 months and sneak one in when she's not looking...

{side note, I would not consider breaking this promise except that the photo's her friends took of her at the event are now all over Facebook AND she is now using one as her image on facebook so I feel I have some proud parent leeway to show her off later, surely???}

A quick Sketchy Thursday Layout, photos of Meaghan from a few years ago, sitting on the trampoline with her hair sticking out in all directions. At least she liked getting her photo taken then...

Have a good day.

Happy Mother's Day

The tone was set for the day while out with friends last night, Geoff is informed it is actually Mother's day tomorrow. Hmmm may be a bit short present wise but I was spoilt with lots of affection and many 'you're the best Mum in the world' from the kids ( maybe a bit grovelly and they may demand money very soon, but I will take it while I can..)

Any way Henry made me a nice card, Matt whipped out a haiku (see below) and Meaghan is in the process of cooking tea and dessert (hopefully with a bit of help from Geoff..). so not all bad, in fact quite good especially if Matt washes up.

And we did go for a bike ride as it was a lovely day - although that ended in a slight disaster when Henry crashed into to another kid who was on the wrong side of the track.



To finish off a LO I did for Design Dollies using two of their challenges, the colour challenge being pink, orange and cream (I found this quite tricky..) as well as including something for teacher appreciation week. This is for Meaghan's year 5 and 6 teacher who was perfect for improving Meaghan's confidence and preparing her for high school. fabulous teacher and I will be sorry when she leaves at the end of the year.

Just a reminder to go check out Butterfly Crafts challenge for May as the prize (sponsored by Nikki Sivils,) is enormous, lots of yummy stuff.

Off to ring my mother now, she's had a long week as Dad has been fighting an arm infection and ended up having the infection chopped out. Hopefully will be a better week this week. xx

I'm a 'soccer Mom'

It has come to pass. I have become a 'soccer mom'. Oh dear. Both Henry and Meaghan started on Saturday, such a beautiful day. Henry had a ball and we don't count scores in his comp so getting to touch the ball is the main aim. And Henry did. He is in an already established team from last year and I wasn't sure how that would go but hen didn't mind. His coach is wonderful, very encouraging and that's all we ask at this stage.

Meaghan's team is a mix of year 7 and 8's and it is safe to say they are fairly inexperienced (ie they copped a bit of a bath...). But it is a positive for teenage girls just to be out running around and they all enjoyed themselves.

Matt also started the hockey season on Sunday morning, he is in the firsts full time now and they started with a win, yay.

Weekends are now officially full.


To celebrate this season, I used the sketch for this months Butterfly crafts visual challenge which is now up here. Go check out some of the other DT's versions of this sketch - very cool.
This months prize is a nice big stash of goodies form Nikki Sivil.



The Studio's latest couple of challenges are now up as well. This is my last as Guest designer for April, lots of fun there. This challenge is to do a LO about technology in your life. As my mobile had just crashed and was eventually out of action for over a month I based my LO on how I hadn't realised how dependant on how I had become on this little device. I now have a little replacement phone, very basic but functional. Will upgrade when my new plan is due.



have a great week xxx

My childhood favourite

This must have driven Mum mad (although I was cute enough to take a photo of..), dressed up in my best white top and white tights and grabbing hold of one of the orphaned lambs. Not so white after that, cute white lambs in Australia are usually covered in a nice layer of dirt and other unmentionables. We had quite a few lambs to look after at the end of winter and start of spring and I loved them all. My favourite thought he was a dog and trotted after me.

The sketch is from Sketchy Thursday, kept it simple, mainly bo bunny patterned paper.