Nooooo............... it can't be April - that's not fair!

I don't believe it's April already.

I don't believe I haven't uploaded anything since the 1st Jan.

I must be the worst blogger ever! Just working all the time and no time for play - how sad.

Let me think about what's happened this year. Emma's birthday in Jan, Stephen's too. Somehow we survived the summer holidays. Emma started senior school - such a grown up girl now. She's already been to camp, had the swimming carnival where she did butterfly and also house choral competition so it's been a great start to the year for her.

Went to crop for a cure this year to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital. Such a fun day - will definitely go again next year. The raffle prizes were amazing and the goody bag was stuffed full of things.

We went away to s-i-l's farm for Easter - always a good break. Caught up with some friends who moved up that way last year too. They live in Yackandandah - a gorgeous little town.

This photo was taken at Ricketts Point last weekend. Vicky and I had a good catch up while the girls played. It was a beautiful morning. The girls got soaked with all the splashing. Funny how "yes you can just paddle" results in getting wet from top to toe!

I took Melissa shopping for leggings and she ended up with this top too which she just loves - as you can see. She also had her hair cut and is very happy with that too. My little fashion queen!

I actually did some scrapping this weekend for the Alison Ellis cc and used their gorgeous new pp - from the flights of fancy range. Beautiful colours with butterflies and faeries and gold and silver foil embossing.

And finally - an up to date photo of me - don't laugh:-)

Happy New Year!

Well it's 2008 and I wonder what this year will bring. It's certainly a scorching hot start thank heavens we have a bit of a cool change coming through now.

This is a pic of Emma giving her graduation speech at school. All the grade 6's had to speak for 30 seconds to a minute about their time at school. They all did really well and it was lovely to see them all dressed up for the night.

Voila! a fireplace!! This will all be covered by a ceiling when it is finally finished but at least there is progress. Of course it is way too hot to even contemplate lighting a fire now.

These 2 layouts were done for the AED cc on saturday. Couldn't resist taking a pic of Melissa with her 2 front teeth missing:-)

Hope you had a great christmas and all the best for 2008.

Simone

December Chat

A bit late but here is a photo from Melissa's birthday. The cake is a butterfly.

Melissa's new red shoes. Just Gorgeous.

The girls at their callisthenics presentation night. Emma received an award for most improved and the girls were presented with the medals their teams had won over the year.

Things have been moving on out the back. We had the concrete poured for the chimney footings and the stumps for the deck at the weekend. Stephen has put in a lot of the edging for the garden beds and has built our compost bins. He also managed to put the digger through the sewer pipe - on a sunday of course but all was fixed pretty quickly. Will have to take some photos of the progress.

Only 3 weeks left of school but it's going to be very busy. We have the information night for Emma's secondary school tomorrow and then Movie Night for the school on tuesday. The whole school production this year was a movie and each class filmed a segment. It is going to be shown in a real cinema with red carpet etc. Should be lots of fun.

Then because Emma is leaving primary school we have graduation night with speeches, dinner and disco for the kids.

Also coming up is carol night at the school and also at Dendy Park. The school choir is singing this year at the park so Emma will be up on stage. It's always a great night.

Still haven't done the christmas shopping either.....dad what do you want? :-)

Until next time,

Simone

Did I say dustbowl?

Did I say dust bowl lol?!!!!!

This is our backyard this morning after the storm last night. The problem is that when it was dug out the bobcat man had to dig lower than the stormwater pipe so had to dig it up. Now the rain from the roof comes down the downpipe and straight on to the dirt. We told the girls we'd finally decided to put in a swimming pool but they weren't impressed. Funny that:-)

We have a collage artist in the family. Melissa disappeared into her bedroom to do a layout and finally emerged with this. I was quite impressed, I'm just not sure how to store it. Any ideas anyone?

It's so nice to have a long weekend. The girls don't have school tomorrow (curriculum day) and then of course it's Melbourne Cup public holiday so I'm not going to work until wednesday.

A friend is getting married tomorrow evening and it's within walking distance so I hope the weather holds out. Should be fun.

Have a great week!

Cybercrop

Two layouts for Bonsscraps cyber crop.

The first was based on a sketch and the second had to use certain items. I'm trying to use up my stash as I have so many supplies it's a bit ridiculous, especially flowers and ribbons.

Now saying that....

I went to Scraptacular today as I needed some more white and black bazzil (still my faves for background cardstock) and also bought a 1 and a half inch circular punch. Have been putting off buying one for about 2 years but it is the perfect size for the Alison Ellis my cuts.

Also bought a mini HS butterfly mask and some beautiful Queen & Co felt, oh and a Hambly sheet of transparencies. I guess I didn't go too mad - no pp to add to my stash.

This is what our back yard looks like

except that we now have a concrete driveway up to the garage. It's great fun living in a dust bowl. Eventually we will have a covered deck - hopefully in time for christmas!

Hope you're having fun:-)

Card Making Frenzy

I received the new pack of papers from Alison Ellis in the week along with some gorgeous chipboard shapes and superfine glitter. Melissa was home sick the day it arrived so we spent the day playing. The card on the left of the purple trio was made by Melissa - she couldn't wait to try out the glitter. Have a look to see all the gorgeous colours in the glitter range: http://www.alisonellisdesign.com.au/html/ccpreview.html

A few more cards made recently. The one on the top left uses a Stampin Up stamp from a lovely set of 12 called taggers dozen. See Fleur's blog for more details - I got them at one of her Stampin Up days.

The following cards were made for the Alison Ellis Cyber crop which was on last night. Lots of discussion about "inchies" which are tiny pieces of artwork 1 inch by 1 inch square. They are extremely addictive. The card on the left uses AED glitter Lime Sherbert and is a gorgeous dazzling green. The little square in the middle of the card is one of my inchies as are the squares that spell out the word "noel" on the card on the right. The last 2 cards use some of the new AED pp which is just divine with the gold and silver foil highlights. For the 'Joy card' I have also used Fancy Pants big board stars and MM philadelphia letters all painted with gold paint.

This layout was for one of the AED challenges - to write your Santa wish list. I have used AED pp, made some inchies:-) and also used Bo Bunny rub-ons.

Can't believe after about 4 months I am scrapping again and loving it. Completely went off the boil earlier this year.

How about the wind today? It's revolting, especially as we have just dirt as our back yard. It was cleared out about a month ago in preparation for landscaping so now we're living with a dust storm.

Have a great week!

Still Here!

First of all I want to thank all of you lovely people who have left comments on my blog. So much was happening over winter that something had to give and that was my blog. Both girls had calisthenics comps on weekends plus Emma had netball matches and tournaments. I also started a new job and am working most days so by the time I get home and do dinner, chores etc I am too tired to even contemplate blogging.

We have also had the backyard cleared and a driveway put in to the garage at the back of the block so there has been a lot of sorting out to do.

However, the calisthenics comps have all finished, as have the netball tournaments so weekends are being reclaimed. The deck needs to be built but we're getting someone in to do that so we just need to concentrate on the landscaping.

We did manage to get away for a week to Moama which was lovely. Where we stayed was right on the Murray and had lovely bush land (see pic). We played tennis, went horseriding, and generally just relaxed.

Melissa turned 7 this month. I actually managed to make the party bags using a template that Vicky gave me. I used Alison Ellis Designs Garden Party range and they looked gorgeous filled with lollies. That's about the only scrapping I have done in the last few months apart from a couple of cards. I will be going to the AED cybercrop on sat 27th October though and hopefully will produce something. It's been so long I can't even remember what's in my stash any more. AED have some lovely new papers and have you seen their beautiful new glitters and chipboard? Have a look here: http://www.alisonellisdesign.com.au/

Hope you've all been scrapping madly to make up for me!