SBO’s very sweet christmas competition

I just have to say how much I enjoyed taking part in this competition. Up for grabs was the MM Slice – and the winner was chosen via a “raffle ticket” system which meant that if you participated, you had as good a chance as the next person. Sweet! {nope, it wasn’t my number that got pulled out}

What I really loved about this was that the item to be created each week was something that was useful, or part of the season’s buildup. Meaning it didn’t seem to take any extra time at this busy time of year to complete.

Now, I was going to get all clever and put all the creations together in one little mosaic, but for some reason, the Mosaic Maker over at Big Labs is not playing nicely and all I’m getting is one blank square. Not so interesting I feel. I’ve already share some of the projects so I’m not going to repeat myself with the individual pics now, but I will share the final project with you.

In order to take part in this challenge in Week 7, we needed to have completed four out of the first five week’s. I missed the christmas card gift set challenge, but managed to get the other four done. So I was thrilled to receive the Week 7 mystery item…..

It’s a chipboard house by Doodlebug. Getting it decorated seem to take no time at all. Well, to begin with:

Hmmmm…. yeah. Boring. So, now the bare bones are done, time for a little fun I think! I decided to go with a summer Christmas look – even though the traditional snowy scenes look great. But here in NZ, christmas is all about the summer.

{Oh please! Blurry photos are SO the next scrapbooking trend!! LOL}

The Mr’s enjoyed the final result as much as I did. It seems the house is just right for Lego figures. I feel I might be in need of a “No Trespassing!” sign

And now Andrea and the design team at SBO have ALL the houses done in the village. Go take a look here – spectacular is an understatement!!

A tree layout

This week’s challenge for the SBO Very Sweet Christmas competition was to create a layout using a photo of this year’s tree. Luckily for me, we had the tree up just before I read what the challenge was.

And then I needed to find time to actually produce the darn layout!!

Which may have been a good thing, as the idea percolated in my mind for a few days. Actually, this is nothing like what I had in mind, because I saw smaller photos and more white space. But in the hour I had to play this afternoon (in between school pick-up and the return for the school disco starting at 5), the creation became this.

I see my photographic skills are getting worse rather than better and I’m not sure the light I was using is really an excuse – but in real life the colours work really well. I also wanted to use the words to a little christmas ditty I know – because it has been going around and around and around my head the last few weeks thanks to a “Spot’s Musical Christmas” book we have here.  If I knew how to get a post with music in the background, I would inflict share the song upon with you all as well!

And I should admit here and now that although you see the Mr’s helping decorate, this is one thing I’m a bit anal about. The decs MUST be reasonably spread, balanced, generally green/red/gold and not too tacky. I love the fact I have some nice ornaments that have been accumulated from around the globe and over the years. That “Noel” glittery string was actually on a display in a shop in Antwerp and I was able to persuade the owner to part with it. This year’s additions are three little birdies from Kirkcaldies…. the bird trend isn’t just in scrapbooking!!

Layout details: Various pp from last year’s Srapcook Essentials Dec kit plus vellum and Stampin Up! paper; Maya Road journalling spot; Dymo label; prima flowers; KaiserCraft flourish; paint; glimmermist; various ribbons, fabric and beads; Making Memories glitter alpha and American Craft thicjers; white gel pen

Fun and Games

Last night saw my girlfriend and I launch our craft group at the local community centre. It’s something that has been talked about for a while and finally fitting in our plans with the community centre’s co-ordinator and all our schedules, we finally got it all done and dusted.

I was a little nervous about how many people we would get (or not get!) so roped in a couple of loyal friends as part of our rent a crowd. We needn’t have worried too much though: despite the torrential rain in the evening, we got 12 bodies along.

Not bad! Hopefully the support will continue and may even grow as the group will start properly in the new year.

We had four demonstrations /make and takes planned – and I think they went down pretty well. It took a little longer than I thought it might have – but that was largely due to the fact we hadn’t told people to bring their own supplies. We figured that people wanting to give it a go probably wouldn’t have things like trimmers etc hanging around their place.

One of the items I demonstrated was a little hanging treat box. It’s perfect for decorating the tree with instead of (or as well as!) candy canes, teacher’s gifts, or just as a little thing to brighten someone’s day.

Details: Stampin Up! stamps, wintergreen DSP, soft sage ink and cardstock, tag and word window punches, ribbon plus half a velcro spot as closure.

Inside is a Cadbury Magic Elf chocolate bar….yum!! You could easily put another kind of bar around the same size as a Freddo Frog bar. Note too that while I used a punch to create the inside opening, you could easily do this with a craft knife if you don’t have the punch.

If you like the looks of this, check out the tutorial from Angie Kennedy Juda right here.

Plus…. having made this after SBO’s week 4′s challenge announcement to make a christmas ornament or other decoration… I’m thrilled that I will be able to say I’ve completed the challenge for this week too. I’ve made about 6 now!

Donna demonstrated a great mini-pizzabox which makes an awesome little gift box, plus a cute little angel made from 3 punches. Go take a look here to see pics of those – plus if you like the looks of them, I’m sure Donna will send you instructions if you leave her a comment

Krafty Verve challenge

A couple of weeks ago, Verve started the September parade challenge, which was to do a card featuring natural elements like Kraft card, or twine or somesuch. Knowing I have some new Verve goodies, still to be inked, I thought it would be a great challenge. However, knowing I also have the serious revision thing going on, I have to be very good and ensure I’m not playing instead of studying. So, I did a quick card I needed for a pal of Mr 4′s:

Supplies: Kaiser stamps, Stazon ink, SU! cardstock and twine, scrap Kraft paper, watercolour pencils

I have since done another card for one of the Mr’s cousins but still have to upload it. I managed to use one of the Verve stamps on that one too, so I’ll feel better about that

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Angus update:

Going to bed really well now. Night 3 saw a bit of wimpering as he was put to bed and that was it. The next few nights have seen him walk into the laundry with me, and settling happily. Yay! He does wake us in the morning, but with Daylight saving, so far that time is OK.

Our biggest issue now is the house-training…. I really hope we get this sorted soon. Anytime we’ve managed to get him to go outside, it seems to have been great luck rather than anything else. Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare as we were having “mistakes” soon after we’d taken him to the spot where he was meant to go. Grrrrrrr! However, we’ve decided to go the “crate training method” and I’m hoping this will allow us to get it sorted soon.

This method sounded a bit over the top to me when it was first suggested to us. However, as I need to have the time to revise, I can’t be 100% attentive to him so it seems like a good method for us all afterall. In addition, we want to make sure he has a happy space to be confined in if we have visitors that are not comfortable around dogs. Especially as he gets older – and bigger!

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My Circle Journal made its way home last week. It’s lovely and I have pictures to share too. But again, I’ll have to be a tease and promise that you will see those a bit later

That’s my 15 minutes online time up, so have a great day!

Olympic Warm-up

Haha! Did I have you fooled even just a bit with that title? It’s not about physical sport at all – although, perhaps I should really go for a walk today.

SketchBook is getting in the groove of all things Olympian and having a bit of a scrapping contest. All participants had to choose a country to represent and sign-up by today. Now, normally I don’t enter these things because A) there are waaaaay too many talented ladies out there for me to even “compete” and B) the whole time commitment thing – I usually can’t be sure I can meet the deadlines because ….yes, that’s right: “study first”. I so cannot wait til 22 October!

However, this contest is one where we are being encouraged to take part in as and when we can. Not too sure therefore if I can take part in every challenge, but, well, maybe some of them. So there was a warm up that needed to be in by midnight last night. I decided yesterday morning I might as well have a go and signed up as Luxembourg. Knowing the challenge was to do a layout in the colours of the chosen countries flag and only those colours, I wanted to be kind to myself and knew that I had plenty of red, white and blue to work with. At 7.30 I was hunting for a photo of myself to work with – yes, that was the other part of the challenge. There deliberately is not too many pics of me waiting to be used – but thanks to Kris who took some photos on teh fly while we were at scrapcamp a few months back, I found a couple.

So the flag I had to work with:

And no, I have not got this confused with Netherlands! Their flags are virtually identical, and while I lived over there, I always thought that the similarity was borne from the fact the Grand Duke was of the House of Orange – the same as the ruling house of Netherlands. Well, that turns out to be a coincidence. Interesting. The blue here is a different shade of blue to the Dutch flag and Luxembourg uses a ratio of 3:5 or 1:2, meaning their flag is longer than that of their Dutch cousins. The colours for the Luxembourg flag were derived from the country’s coat of arms, and the flag was first used during the Belgian revolt in 1830, although it was only in 1972 that they brought in legislation regulating their flag.

Anyway, that’s enough history for the moment. Here is the layout I did for the warm-up:

Actually, I’m glad to have done this challenge. As I said, it was at 7.30pm last night that I figured out what I was going to use and how. The layout was uploaded by about 10.30. All in all, a pretty quick layout! But the thing that pleases me most is how I managed to document the connection to my nana. I’ve enjoyed all sorts of crafts for a while now, and when I thought about it, it was my nana that introduced me to things like knitting and cross-stitch about 30 odd years ago. It was something I didn’t think of much back then, I got bored with it all and only restarted doing something crafty in late High School. Now, I can’t live with not doing something! And I’ve added a fair few other handcrafts into my repertoire! Who knew my nana was teaching me all those years ago something that would become so satisfying?

Making the most of the weekend

Yesterday we headed out for a bit of a Sunday drive. We haven’t done this very much recently because of the price of petrol, but it seemed like a good thing to do to make the most of the extra bit of time we found oursleves with thanks to Junior Rugby being cancelled yesterday.

After a quick visit to Hubby’s mum in the home, it was approaching lunch time. Seeing as we were kind of out that way, we decided to head on out to Short Straw cafe. This is one totally, fabulous family oriented cafe for both summer and winter. It’s out in the wops a bit, which definitely adds to its charm. The Mr’s enjoyed their kid’s platter, but most of all really enjoyed playing out in the sun (very weak, wintery sun, but sun nonetheless). We had managed to get the perfect corner couch seat so I could enjoy their energy from the inside, while remaining cosy and warm and rugged up myself. See…. being a bit sensible here!

I’m so glad we did. Because to day, the weather is just S*&%. Truly. A leak that we get in the lounge only when it is really blowing a southerly and driving the rain in re-emerged. Oh joy. Apart from catching the drips, and the clean up after, it’s not so bad but still. But before we noticed that little issue, we had some family fun.

Mr 6 has his birthday on Wednesday and because I am trying to avoid doing full-on parties every year, we decided to take just 3 friends to laser-strike then get some food afterward. All was well and good – except the fact that the ONLY time I could get was 9.30am this morning. Too darn early in real life! It meant too that all the friends were asked to skip church, which they did so we were lucky. Hubby and Mr 4 made up the numbers to 6 and it made for a good game to watch on the little screens. (I personally don’t enjoy laser-tag so was happy to sit it out.) From the looks on all their faces and the excitement that oozed out of them at the end, this was a very good boy activity! Even Hubby worked up quite a sweat from the running around!

We then went to McD’s for some replenishment and after another indoor run-around session at their playground, headed off back home. I decided the weather meant we still had an hour of being cooped up together before the boy’s families had finished their activities and came to claim the boys, so I popped in to pick up some rental Playstation games. Boy, those Buzz games are great for these kinds of days! We also picked up a Ratchet and Clank game (….do I sound like I know what I am talking about?? Because I don’t!) Between these things, some jig-saws and some lego at home, this has been quite the party. Come pick-up time, we had a total of 5 boys all playing pleasantly and quietly doing various activities in the warm lounge.

I swear I did not drug any of them!!!

Oh, and yesterday, before the fun and games of today; I managed to get an hour or so to myself. And whipped up this:

You might remember the photo from here. I’ve combined two challenges to get this page done, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with teh outcome. I used ScrapboxNZ June sketch plus the Friday night challenge at Sketchbook. The FNC was to combine patterned papers from various manufacturers – and not to worry about clashing colours. I used Making Memories, Imaginsce and Scenic Route – and I’m surprised at how well they worked together. I also had fun with a bit of handstitching, some stamping, and of course my threading water punch.

The best part

Yesterday’s crop went really well. The weather was atrocious – it even hailed a bit up this way. But the venue was cosy and warm. And we managed to NOT eat all the home backing. Now that surprised me! Who knew there could be a bunch of scrappers and homebaking in a room and at the end of the day, baking to be taken home?!

Because I was a bit naughty and realised I’d booked two consecutive weekends for my obsession hobby, I’d suggested I could have Mr 6 for a couple of hours so that he and Mr 4 could have a Daddy-date. Mr 6 was over the moon when hubby told him the night before. Who knew that Mr 6 would get so excited? Hubby asks. The plan was to get his Dinosaur page done – the one that he has been wanting to do for some time now. On a trip to Kiwiscraps on Friday afternoon (the same one where I got to meet Trace) I found some of the new basic grey papers in the Archaic line. Absolutely perfect for the dino page!! When I showed it to Mr 6 Saturday morning he was so excited.

So Mr 6 and I got down to doing his page. Now, I had a plan in terms of how to “stucture” the page. But Mr 6 picked the photos he wanted to use then measured and cut the papers as I told him too. He then stuck all the double sided tape on, and attached the papers together like we’d agreed. He asked me to cut around the pictures because he wasn’t so confident with the knife – and to be honest I was glad too. Didn’t like the thought of him slicing his fingers! Then I handed him some cardstock and said OK, write the story you want on this. I was thinking that he would just write a paragraph and it would be a journalling spot. But he had other plans – take a look:

I’m so pleased for him that he did this – he knew what he wanted and he was so happy with the finished page. When he got home he was so busy and excited about the page, Hubby is worried that he now has a double funnel from his paypacket directed towards teh LSS

And I got the Friday night challenge done:

2x patterned papers, a 5×7 photo and a bird. Yes, a blimmin bird!! That’s a trend I never got – sticking birds on a page just for the fun of it. But there you go. And when I discovered I had some paper with a bird on it, I just knew I could do this challenge. Go me!!

So who were the crazy group of croppers that joined me yesterday? It was this lot: some locally based scrappers from the SE Forum – plus a couple of ringers.

Back: D, Ali, K, Spgettie, Bubbles

Front: M, Me, Angelgurl, Wgtnscrapper

In amongst all the creating, that’s what was the most fun. Time spent with people. Making the virtual friends real. Good times.

7 Things

Ummmm I did this tag some time last year. Can I just copy and paste those in? No? Darn!

Right, so thanks to Bettina and Widdleshamrock, here are 7 more weird things about me that you probably didn’t know – and possibly never wanted to know.

1. I live near Widdleshamrock. Darn – she told me that wasn’t weird enough to include!

Ok….

1. I have Goldilocks syndrome when I’m going to sleep. I can’t be too cold or too hot. Usually this is managed by sticking one foot outside the duvet.
2. I tried to manage my addiction to marshmellow easter eggs by putting the packets I bought last week in the freezer. I’ve spent the last week realising just how good frozen marshmellow easter eggs are!
3. I have to make my tea with freshly boiled water. And then let it sit for 10 minutes or so to cool down.
4. I find it annoying to realise that although I have just sent someone an e-mail, it could be DAYS before I get a reply. I can’t help but push the refresh button futilely in the vain hopes there might be an immediate response. I mean – they should be sitting there just waiting for my message to pop into their inbox…..
5. I love having my toes done – feet massaged etc. I know this will totally skeeve someone out because she hates it pretty much as much as I love it
6. I received a personal letter from David Lange when I was in the 3rd form after I wrote to him in support of the Anti-Nuclear policies. During the very brief period that Geoffory Palmer was our Prime Minister, he came through my checkout at the supermarket I worked in on a Friday night. Seems even PMs need tomato sauce with their fish and chips. I think that might qualify me for PM.
7. I find it really, really difficult to let a ringing phone go through to answer phone. It’s like the other person will know I’m there and ring back so I might as well pick up now, right?!

Ok – I know I’m meant to tag another 7 people but pretty much every one I know with a blog has done this. So, if you haven’t… feel free to share and consider yourself tagged.

Day 29 of 29

Wow! I made it!! 29 Days of taking photos of stuff. The stuff of my life. I’m so thrilled with that. Mainly because it was a challenge to just pick up the camera and get some everyday moments documented. And because the camera was always around this month, there were times when instead of just pointing and shooting, I was thinking about the shot more. There are a couple of the photos from the month that I am super pleased with how they turned out. Where instead of leaving the camera on auto, I got brave a little bit out of my comfort zone and used other settings, like Macro. Who knows, one day I might actually be able to take two great shots in a row! Anyway, thanks for putting up with my little photographic journey this month.

Today’s photo is of a new system we are putting in place for Mr 3. Funnily enough, Mr 6 thinks he’s missing out and is finding stuff to do in order to take part too. Mr 3 has been toiletted now for about six months or so. Most of it has been very independently done. Something that began to be noticed through the Christmas holidays was an increasing demand for Mum or Dad to come help. “Help” often was in the form of just standing and watching. I had my suspicions that it was some form of demands for our attention – as Mr 6 has the personality which ensures he gets a great deal and Mr 3 may have worked out his own little strategy on this one. However, his strategy was getting more and more frustrating: running up and down the hallway, insisting he could not go on his own. And then a couple of “accidents”. And then a little conversation with the teachers at kindy. Yep, the grand demands were being made on them too.

This all wound up with the conclusion we needed to re-direct Mr 3 and get him feeling confident with his independence once more. Gosh that sounds like a lot of PC twaddle doesn’t it??! Basically, neither myself or the teachers really wanted to be dragged to the bathroom when Mr 3 was more than capable of doing what he needed to do without help or an audience. So with a bit of thought, I decided to just steal one of Widdleshamrock’s ideas outright. A jellybean for every time Mr 3 wipes his own nose or bum on his own. Yes, I am completely unashamed to admit I resorted to bribery positive reinforcement.

Mr 3 thought this was a grand plan.

We spoke with the teachers the following morning. We all congratulated me on this winning formula. Mr 3 got a stamp on each hand that morning: one for his nose, and one for his bum, indicating entitlement to two jellybeans. And since that day, there has scarcely been a demand upon me for the former motherly duties to be performed.

Why am I left with the feeling I’ve been duped??!

Day 29:

Pure Bribery

Day 28 of 29

One more day to go!

Day 28:

Mr 6 & Lou

Ok – you’ll need to forgive me – this one was taken way earlier in the month and I forgot to use it. Darn it all! Mr 6 is just cleaning Lou’s face up after the picnic lunch we’d finished. He just loves his dogs to bits. Awwwww.