A Bonus Dollies week.

Despite the fact that May has flown, it is a quirk of this month that it has 5 Dollie weeks in it! So you have an extra week to finish off the trifecta - great prizes and only a couple of entries so far.

And as a bonus we have a fun round, where yours truly is donating a prize. The Dollies have chosen their favourite LO's from past Dollie challenges and you get to scraplift us!How cool is that, very exciting for the girls. I have dug back to my pre DT times and come up with one I did for a sketch challenge in July last year.

This went into my brothers album, remembering a time he and my other brother were let loose in the big city and found a photo booth. Brother no1, being the consummate cool person, knew exactly what to do, brother no2 was less sure and left the booth after the first photo. He missed the next one and was, I suspect, shoved forcefully back in for the third, love that expression on his face...

And here is the prize. Some new stuff and some older stash all unused and complete. The photo on the dollies site has a pack of new flower buttons missing as shown here -
There is a couple of stamps, lots of buttons, stickers, some chipboard shapes, little frames and journalling cards.

And next month (tomorrowish) I will be starting a big card stock give away for the month. I have just cleared out my stash, rearranging everything and have organised my card stock. Even if I scrapped every day for months I would never come close to using it all so I have decided to give some of it away. Possibly with some other stuff. Now I think you may have to do something for this, but I am still working through some details, but if you have less than say, 30 followers or know a fellow blogger who has less than 30 followers, let me know. More info to follow.

Off you go and check out the work of my fellow Dollies, very talented ladies. And I will be back later this week with The latest Southern Girls Challenge.

Quick post between soccer games

Matt is at work, Henry has played his game, Taking Meaghan shopping for 2 presents for a farewell party and then a birthday party she is attending tonight. And between shopping and partying is her soccer game.

I had wanted to enter this weeks My favourite photo (Arrggh Julie, it's like choosing your favourite child...) over at My favourite things challenge site. This is a photo of Henry and me taken earlier this year. Just love it.




And in a super scrapping friday (well for me, I rarely get two done in a day) I finished the latest Sketchy Thursday challenge as well. My Lo last week was in the fav's, yay. These photos are from many years ago when Henry was nearly two. It was at the start of our first big holiday, this was in Lakes Entrance.Henry was so little...

Have a great day. xx

The Trifecta

It's getting towards the end of the month and that means the Dollies Trifecta is up. The colours are mid blue, mid pink, white and brown but you only have to use three of these, Karen's sketch which can be seen here and using folds on your creation for the elements.

This is my mother's day Lo. I received a pile of books (yay, I love books more than even craft..) and a couple were bought using Matt's hard earned money. he may or may not have wanted these books himself but we have some overlapping tastes in fantasy and humour so that's OK (I have been known to buy him books that I have wanted to read..). The Jon Stewart book is one of the funniest I have read in quite some time. I laughed out loud on just about ever page, most excellent. A very good stash for mother's day.


And I have finally gotten around to the latest Crafty Croppers challenge, a sketch -

I didn't go the circle, mine are always a bit non circular, but like the result.


Every time I look at the photos from this day I laugh. We honestly did not notice all the big people were wearing red -
- until we looked at the photos that night. And Meaghan's t shirt is actually pink so I guess that is why it wasn't that obvious. Thanks goodness Henry was in white, otherwise we would have been a nice matchy family...

Ok time to pop over to The Dollies site and have a go at the trifecta, some very yummy prizes up for grabs. Next week, May being a very long month, we will have a special Dollies Challenge with some very cool prizes up for grabs, more of that next week.

have a very fun day. xx

First Goal Ever!!

Henry started playing soccer last year. He was a bit reticent to join in the pack but loved playing. There is only 6 players in a team and Henry was the only one not to score a goal last season (very sad..).

This year he is with mostly the same team and they are down to five regular players. Henry's skills have shot through the roof, as has his confidence level. It was only a matter of time before the elusive goal was scored.

Last Saturday he was in fine form and finally when the ball went forward he was in the right place and shot one through!! Everyone was so excited for him. When it was all done I asked him how he felt when he kicked it. He looked at at me and replied "I blushed..".

Definitely a love/hate relationship with being the centre of attention.

So the lo commemorates a big day for our little man. I used the latest Sketchy Thursday sketch and some may notice I have used not only the fabbo Jillybean Soup corrugated cardboard shapes but the packaging it came in as well (the big half circles). Love multipurpose packaging..

Off to school to pick him up now, bit of a miserable day here, although we do need the rain.

see you tomorrow. xx

PS very glad we all survived the rapture..

And completely unrelated, Happy Birthday Irini!! hugs and xxx

A sketchy day

Lots of Lo's to show you today. And all, I'm afraid from our trip (again).

Firstly this weeks Design dollies sketch, this week done by the very talented Karen (from sunny Qld, a holiday there in some warmth sounds rather good at the moment..).

here is her sketch

Very cool, and here is my effort It is a photo Henry took of himself and a stone elephant (not a single chance he would get that close to a real elephants head..)- it's a little bit steam punk. Have just gotten a new set of stamps

(I can feel the longing from here Irini...)

Next is the latest Sketchy Thursday sketch. Another double pager which is good for the holiday album.

Lots of photos from one place, in this case the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. not the most exciting name for an institution and to be honest the inside , while interesting for the grown ups, held very little for the kids. But outside, just excellent. Lots of full sized ethnic house to climb up into, a water puppet show and a fairly graphic fertility house surrounded by carved wooden statues (an eye opener for the kids for sure..).

And a couple of wonderful little balance beams that Henry couldn't get enough of. At one stage he had a crowd of Vietnamese admirers standing around him, taking lots of photos of him (I found this odd but we took photos of some of the Vietnamese kids so it all makes sense I guess)

And finally another Lo from the weekend crop at Cocoa Daisy (the challenges are still running , go check them out, so very good). This was a challenge to use black as your background and include a night photo. I love black as a background and I had been wanting to get a bit of this story scrapped as well.

This was the photo taken at about 8 o'clock at night just after we had been dropped at a spooky, enormous but empty hotel in a very quiet town the middle of the Vietnamese countryside. We didn't really know where we were, except near a major cave attraction (Phong Nha caves, terrific) and no one (including the hotel staff) spoke English. I was slightly freaked out but Geoff held his calm.
We finally escaped just before lunch the next day and were only ripped off for the taxi fare to the next major town. The taxi trip after that (400km in 10 hours) is a whole new story...

I think I shall go garden now. We have been having sub zero temperatures every morning for the past week but yesterday and today have been magnificent during the day.

have a great day xx

cocoa daisy Crop

Busy, busy weekend (and so very cold in the mornings - minus 7 here this morning - eeppp).
I was hoping to get a lot of scrapping done as the very talented girls at Cocoa Daisy were having their spring crop. So much inspiration, love it. I managed a grand total of three Lo's (so far). There's a couple more i will try.

And thanks to Laura I learnt a new word, vajazzling. Like bedazlling but for a more private part. Ha, crops are educational...

Christine was a genius and sent the kits out earlier than usual and mine arrived on Saturday morning, yay. And I have to say it is one of the best kits I've gotten my hands on for a while. (Having said that my Studio Calico kit arrived this morning and it is also full of goodness). But the Cocoa Daisy kit was put to full use, esp on this LO about Meaghan

Don't you love the ink splat stamp. I think I will probably be over using that baby. I think everything except the wooden flourish came from the kit.

This Lo was inspired by a Billy Bragg album cover. This is the moment Matt got his all important HSC results and did much better than we hoped. It was in a hotel room in Malaysia, didn't have to wait for snail mail as we did back in my day (I am so old now..) Put Matt in a very happy mood for the rest of the holiday.

After a nights Eurovision watching (I was really hoping Iceland would win), time for some house cleaning.

Back tomorrow with a couple more Lo's xx

A bit of folding

Loving the Dollies challenge this week, show some paper folding on your project. I have folded a little paper bow and the paper dahlia.

This was a bit fiddly to start with but love the result. I used 11 circles for a more clustered look but there are some gorgeous flowers made with 8 circles (see here for a tutorial).

Loving the Prima background paper as well.

Yes I did manage to get a photo of Meaghan (thanks to her friend Crystal who cam to get changed at our house, she loves getting her photo taken). I won't comment on Crystal's outfit because she looked totally fab but I am very glad Meaghan has not gotten into short skirts and high heels yet..

So off to the Dollies you must go and show us some of your paper folding.

We started soccer this weekend. I love that Henry's team now starts at 10:30, missing the frost is always appreciated. It was completely beautiful morning and the kids played well. They still don't keep scores (good thing for Henry's team as they were a bit outplayed). I took along the camera and have used a couple of the photos on this weeks Sketchy Thursday's Lo. (sorry the scan has a bit chopped off)



Meaghan's team also had their first game of the year. She has swapped teams from last year and is now in with her friends and indoor soccer team mates. Despite being completely worn out for the disco the night before, the girls managed to pull of a win. Very exciting - I think the coach was a bit stunned. Will have photos up soon.


Now for something a bit terrifying (for me anyway). I don't know what to say, I think the picture says it all.She is 6.

And I know this photo is probably photoshopped to give her that lovely plastic doll look(!!!) but seriously!! She is 6!!

And people are paying her money to come to Australia to show her stuff to other little girls.

sigh...Why do I get a bad feeling that she will be demanding plastic surgery by the time puberty kicks in to hide those awful teenage wrinkles..

Well it won't be hard to get the doll they are planning to release (yep) to look like her anyway.

OK onto some housework, have a great day xx

Feeling Nostalgic part 2

This is the second LO of my little girl this week. (see previous blog post for explanation) This fits the theme of the latest Southern Girls Challege nicely - 'Let's hear it for the girls'. This is not really my stlye - I have come to love white space and this feels a bit messy.

This is one of the few times Meaghan has worn dress ups. She never wanted a dress up box and still is hard to convince that wearing a costume can be fun. So different from her big brother who uses any excuse to dip into his hat collection...


Anyway the Southern Girls has three fab sponsors for this week challenge.



Tiddly Inks for the International Entries

Sassy Studio Designs and Joanna Sheen for the entries down under

I have used one of the many gorgeous images available from Sassy Studio Designs - Tinkerbell Honey. I cannot colour to sve myself (from embarrassment at least), and just altered the colour woth photoshop. So go check out the other ladies work on the design team to show these images at their best.

Come on over and join in the fun!!

And I have finally finished one little very modest crocheted item. It is a little cover for my phone when I have to chuck it in my bag. I used some leftover bamboo yarn, feels very similar to a soft cotton. I now have a little confidence that I can proceed with something more ambitious...


Meaghan is off to the Year 9 Social tonight. I wil attempt to get a photo - wish me luck! She has been marginally more social since she has been back at school and I actually caught her doing homework TWICE this week - it's not natural....

Have a great day xx

Feeling nostalgic

That's probably not quite right but currently I am missing the days when I had a little girl and not a teenager. Meaghan isn't a bad teenager but she defiantly has the attitude , you know it. We probably all had it at some stage.

"I am so much more knowledgeable than you so let me do things my way."

(with metaphorical eye rolling happening at the same time)

I don't mind it so much, she is old enough to spend days hanging out with her friends and she does tend to be self reliant which is all a sign of growing up to be a confident adult. It's the treating me as a cash machine and then putting off any jobs I give her until the last minute (ie until she is back at school and I have to do them). Minor complaints I know, compared to other teenagers but I do miss my little girl who happily chattered away and was pleased to go shopping with me. sigh.

So I dug through some old photo albums and came up with a couple of photos of my girl when she was a bit smaller (and way more compliant..) to scrap. One today and another on thursday for the next Southern Girls challenge.

Anyway, this rambling leads me to my Lo for this weeks Design Dollies. Karen has chosen these colours, with the choice of using just three of them if you want

and despite her (fully justifiable) certainty that I would avoid the pink, I really like pink and brown together, esp with white thrown in.

And I used an old photo of Meaghan when she was 8 and we were trying to get some curl in her very straight hair. We washed her hair then twirled her hair in rags. It worked for most of one day then it went back to dead straight again. I think she likes having straight shiny hair now.




And now the kids are back at school (hooray for peace and quiet but boo to having to get lunches, uniforms ready etc) I can resume scrapping for my favourite challenge sites. First up this week is Sketchy Thursdays. Here is the sketch

and her is a Lo featuring Geoff and I (rare!) although we don't actually appear in the same photo (like superman and Clark Kent - spooky) , the photos were taken on the same day. And it was in service to one of our children (Henry) but not too onerous a task.




And to continue my movie discussion from last week I took Henry to see Hop. I give it extra stars purely because it had David Hasslehoff in it. He is looking a wee bit, hmmm, what's the best way to put this - stretched. And he still can't act but hey - he's the Hoff, and proud of it - gotta love that!!

And I finally saw Juno and completely loved it. One of the best movies I have seen this year, I even endured ads rather than taping it because I just had to see how it finished. I loved her step Mother (maybe left over adoration from the West Wing) and Juno's best friend. And just all the characters, not sickly sweet, very quirky. My type of movie.

Off to Henry's first soccer practice now, must find his boots...

have a great day xx