Brads and Gems

Ahh Brads, how we love and admire them...

Well Ok maybe I am thinking of



But no, At Southern Girls we are thinking brads, Gems and jewels from your stash. Alas I have neither of the above Brads in my stash so have to resort to good old fashioned metal brads. And I have looked to my very cute youngest niece for inspiration.


So Go check out the other girls creations here and then throw some brads and gems at a page and join in the fun! We are also having a mini DT call out - Lovely Carol is leaving us (sigh, I love her work) and we need someone to take her place. So enter the challenge and put (DT) in our mr linky spot, I would love another scrapbooker to join the gang - we have a very friendly group and some very active chat sessions.


And as Geoff is at work today, I manged to get a bit of scrapping done. Henry and his school was involved in The Stromlo running festival after school last friday. the point was to get as many people as you could running or walking for your school and then tally up how many laps they can do in 20 minutes. Our school managed around about 400ks and came in third. It was very hot so 20mins was about long enough. I walked and took my camera along - more photos here for locals who are interested.


Over at Mission to Create, the latest challenge seemed ideal for the Lo I had in mind. The criteria were, use transport, distress your photo (ok I only sanded the edge of the main photo a little), add clouds and a ticket and use this sketch

and I came up with this - mostly from the last Cocoa Daisy kit. The brown background paper is from Nikki Sivils that the very generous Julie sent me (more of that on Monday..) Love that girl xxx

It appears that Matt has job, part time in a take away/restaurant sort of place.He seems to think it will be fun so I will let him have his delusions for a while...

Have a great day xx

Popular vs Well liked (and the latest Dollie challenge)

Ok, bit of a departure from scrapping for a while, just a bit of rambling..


Last year I listened to a woman speaking on how, when surveyed, Canberra teens would rather be popular than well liked. My first thought was 'Is there a difference?". And the more I thought about it, the more I realised there was a difference and that the teens taking part in this survey were very mature to realise this, I certainly wouldn't have been able to at that age.

Anyway, last night Meaghan's indoor soccer team played against one of the other teams from their school. Meaghan always steps up her play for these games and takes them far more seriously, as do the rest of her team (unfortunately the other team is , lets face it a better team, so the result was a bit one sided..).

After the game Meaghan mentioned that they were the popular girls at school, that's why her team go in so hard. When I asked Meaghan about whether she would rather be popular or well liked, she gave me that look that only a teen can give. "they're the same thing at our school Mum.."

Then I asked her if she liked the popular girls. 'Sort of, but I don't really know them'. And I remembered that the popular girls in primary school were the ones behind a lot of the bullying that went on. And my teen years were the same. I knew who the popular girls were but didn't actually like them. Isn't that an odd thing. Maybe popular is synonymous with powerful rather than friendliness.

When discussing this with Matt and Geoff, Matt got it but Geoff didn't. After further discussion it turns out Geoff was considered popular at school (good at sports is also a qualifier in being popular, for boys at least I think). Actually I think I may have been popular at University and I am pretty sure there were quite a few people who didn't like me, hmmm, I don't think I would have liked me either...

.
What do you think? Is there a difference between boy and girl popularity? Maybe because I am coming from the perspective of not being in the popular group at school and having the eldest two kids not concerned about being the most popular (Henry is a different kettle of fish..) that it colours my view. I find the whole study a fascinating area.


Anyway onto more important matters, the latest Design Dollies challenge is out and it is sketch week, my fav.

and here is my takeGeoff took this photo when we were in Ulladulla over the hols. Pretty cool.

popo on over to the Dollies site and come and play with us. We love all your entries.

Ok off to do book club at school now. Can't snesk a peek into Henry's class anymore as he is at the other end of school, being all grown up now, sigh...

have a great day
xxx

more cats

Just for Jo, cause I know she loves them soo very much.

A couple of weeks ago this kitten turned up in our yard. He has since visited every day, just hangin' out with us. He had a collar that lasted less than a day, so we are still not entirely sure who he belongs to, but he is well fed (along with helping himself to our dried food) and well looked after. I have to admit it is nice having a completely looney little kitten aroung (it had been many a long year sinec our cat, Wally was that little, he has just turned 11).

Wally has been very good with him, which I put down to his age as he has been known as a bit of a brawler in his youth...

I have used this sketch from Sketchy Thursday.


Matt is still looking for a job, he had a trail last week which we were hopeful he would get as it was close by, but he didn't have the experience they were after. Hopefully soon...

Back tomorrow with the latest Design Dollies sketch. Have a great day/night until then xx

Lovely Design dollies

A quick post to say happy valentines +1 day!
In honour of this slightly commercial event (ok so I don't buy into the whole valentines thing, not a romantic I guess..), the Dollies are having a love theme to their elements challenge this week. I am embarrassed to say when I went looking for a nice shot of Geoff and I together, well I failed. A bit of a wake up call to get the kids to take some photos of us as a couple, soon I think...

So I whipped up an ATC. This was fun actually, lots of ink and rubons. A bit dark romance, love deep red and black together. The other dollies did some wonderful things as well. So come and play!!


A quick one for Sketchy Thursday as well. Here's the sketch
And here is my Lo

more messy ink work - yay! These were some photos taken when we were down visiting Geoff's Mum and we went for a walk around the harbour. Henry loves clambering over the rocks, a good way to spend the afternoon esp. as it was a bit too cold to swim.

Oh and go check out the talented Southern Girls challenge for this fortnight - use brown and blue in your colour scheme. Nice prizes to be had for a couple of lucky people.

Now as I finally have the house to myself (for an hour anyway.) off to make more mess xx

and Oh number 2, go listen to this interview on our local radio. It is Kaffe Fasset talking about how colour inspires him in all his artistic endeavours, and a bit about his life. I was completely hooked on this interview, if you need any inspiration, grab a coffee and have a listen!!!!

The Studio

social networking site is up and running again. This was one of my favourite places to hang out last year but had to close down for a while. In celebration I have entered their latest challenge (actually not their latest but close enough..). The latest challenge is a card so all my card making friends might want to go check that one out.

Anyway this one was to use green, blue and yellow on a LO. Love these photos but not sure about all that yellow, may have over misted I think...


Ok, for those of you bored by holiday stories you may want to tune out now.

Hue, in central Vietnam is located on The Perfume River and was once the centre of power. It also saw some of the heaviest action during the Vietnam War as it is just south of the DMZ. Along this river is a number of tombs of the old emperors of Vietnam (the last emperor was still around in the early 20th century). To see these tombs you hop on one of theseHighly recommended by the way. This particular story veers somewhat off line as the woman who owned the boat had a 10 yo daughter who obviously helped her mother out. The boat was also the family home. Henry had bought along his old gameboy to play and the he and the girl spent just about all the time huddled together playing. Which was so lovely to see.On the way back they were joined by her brother who must have been all of 12. While they were happily playing together, the rest of us were taking in the scenery. Meaghan and I were up the front watching a huge metal buoy get closer and closer. Surely the boat would be, you know, avoid this thing that resembled a mine. No, apparently the captain was now playing gameboy with Henry...

The impact was loud but no real damage was done (ie we didn't sink or leak more water). And the captain moved faster than I have seen anyone move. No more pacman for him.

Apparently this was all my fault (according to Henry) because
a) I had encouraged him to take the game boy along and
b) I had given birth to him in the first place.


Not sure about this Lo, I used a sketch from Pencil Lines (#224) but I think my interpretation is all over the place.

Will be back later today or tomorrow with the latest Dollies challenge. Have a great day xx

back to school

After 2 months off(!!!!!) the kids are finally back at school. And although this usually makes me very happy (except for the whole getting up early, getting lunches ready and uniform thing), yesterday I still had Geoff and Matt at home. and they take up space that is by rights mine!! Geoff is now working from home so this situation will continue for some time.

This would not be so bad but where I scrap (ie our bedroom and lets face it, our bed is used as a sort of extension desk) is also where his desk is as well. And as he has phone meetings constantly, I can no longer reside in there during office hours. humph! So time to relocate, hopefully I can squeeze a space out somewhere else - I will let you know..

The kids were equally impressed (not) with going to school. Henry had been up very early the day before (birthday boy) and still had bags under his eyes.


Meaghan tolerated a couple of photos

but then...


enough!
Anyway onto more important matters, the latest Design Dollies challenge is out. This week is colours and I will admit I struggled with this one! I completely lack any scrapping material that is purple. And I do love purple and green together.

It's not that I dislike purple but manufacturers seem to struggle with producing purple items (well ones that I like anyway!) Although I did notice some yummy new Nikki Sivils purple that I would use.

As I had no such yumminess I resorted to paint. Not entirely rapt with the final product but not too bad...
Everywhere we went in Laos, esp the temples, there were cats. And not mangy cats, they were skinny but obviously looked after as well. The bungalows we stayed at had a couple of pet cats (that were several kilos lighter than our enormous cat) that happily sat on your lap as soon as you sat down. Luckily we are a cat rather than a dog family so we enjoyed the company.

And in Hanoi, the hotel had also acquired a pet kitten, who as well as being fairly noisy, enjoyed sitting on the modem, and constantly overheating it!


Anyway come on over, check out the other dollies wonderful creations and show me your purple, green and cream creations, I am sure I will learn a thing or two from you!

xx

Finally some scrapping done

I loved this sketch from Sketchy Thursday this week and managed to get two versions done, a traditional and a digi Lo.

This one is about releasing some small birds from a Buddhist temple in Laos. We bought two of the little cages, one bird in each. This is supposed to give you good karma. Further reading upon getting home made me realise that the little birds don't get quite the same amount of karma as they are often caught in nets and not treated well while awaiting release. Hopefully these ones get a free life after we released them.



This one is simpler. Henry and Matt (and Meaghan as well) got along so well for the whole trip. Matt looked after Henry, often carrying him when he got tired - it was wonderful to see.

And while in the sketchy mood, I gave this weeks Pencil Lines sketch a whirl.


Again from Laos but less obviously so. We took some bubbles along for down times and Henry had a ball while we out at the bungalows, blowing and chasing bubbles. Amazing how kids quickly adapt to no computer and no tv..

So I am quite pleased with these ones, it is so long since I have felt like scrapping and my output has dropped to a trickle. Just needed to get back into a routine I think.

Big couple of days coming up. Henry's 8th(!!!) birthday tomorrow (must go blow up some balloons) and then the day after he and Meaghan are back to school. A couple of Henry's closest friends have moved schools over the hols and he will miss them. He has a male teacher this year so he should enjoy that.

Ok, have a great day xx