Day time scrapping

It is extremely rare for me to be able to scrap during the day, but today the stars and moon must have been aligned perfectly or whatever because everybody co-operated for me to indulge in a blissful 6 hour scrapping session. Admittedly interruped by daily life and such but I was in heaven. Certainly good for the soul these kind of days. And so I could participate in ScrapGals on-line crop, saying goodbye to the outgoing guest DT members in style. I had a ball doing the challenges, what do I say, in combining the challenges and produced two layouts. One a complete lift of the awesome Marci Lambert and another somewhat inspired by Jodi McLean.

Here's my tribute to Marci: a straight lift of her 'Struggle' layout, doing one of her challenges to use a child's artwork and/or item from a thrift store on a layout, plus the crop challenge of using unconventional colours on a layout. In this case pink (the tag) on a boy's layout.

The other one combined 3 challenges: lift Jodi (I took inspiration from her 'What I want to teach my kids' layout) , use 50 of something on a page (I did letter stickers) and use the given quote.

Annabel is feeling seriously left out and keeps asking me: "Where Me?" Too funny. With a bit of luck I may do another one tonight! I want to pay tribute to the wonderful Brenda-Mae Teo. Quite an impressive line-up of talent over on ScrapGal isn't it?

I must say this 'lifting' business sure helps to keep the prograstination in check. Although I still manage to agonize over photo and paper choices...

Harry Potter Party

Thomas turns 6 in a week and a half. SIX! Suffice to say I'm freaking out a little, no make that a lot. Six is big, six is an age I can remember being.
For months he's been pestering me that he wants a Harry Potter birthday party. And I said, yes sure dear, thinking he'd forget all about it when the date was near. It appears he has not. So this past weekend we made invitations on old looking paper (torn and inked edges, woohoo for scrapping supplies), rolled them up and hand delivered them on Monday morning to the choosen few. If it was up to him he'd invite the whole class. I think not! Set my limit at 8. Surprisingly he invited girls, 3 of them. I always thought boys were of the opinion that girls were stupid. But maybe that age is still to come? Anyway, here I am tearing my hair out of what to do with this crowd Saturday next week. Thank goodness for the internet, I've done a quick google search for Harry Potter parties and an enormous list of sites came up. Will have to have a better browse a bit later. Must say that the games I've seen suggested so far seem a bit lame.
I think I'll let them decorate their own wizard or witches hat - at least 2o minutes filled he he.
Cake and pressies another 20 minutes.
Sorting Hat ritual (possibly divide them into the four houses or teams for other games)- about 5 minutes.
Find the Philosophers Stone in a dark and ghostly room (streamers and reflective stars from the ceiling, mock spider web?)- 15 minutes.
And that only fills one hour! Some more procrastinating is obviously needed.

Which brings me to Crafting Connections. I've signed up for the mini-event. Would have loved to do the big one but my budget won't allow it. I've come to the realisation I have to do homework for one of my classes (Perspective with Ali E) and I need pictures of me. Bugger. 1) I hate having my picture taken and 2)I'm not at my most photogenic at the moment with stress and sleep deprivation seriously marking my face. And then the homework itself, uhm, if I was to answer to questions seriously in my current state of mind it's going to be a thoroughly depressive read. I know it's all about capturing a moment in time but quite frankly I'd like to erase these past two years from my memory if I could. And it's not over yet.
And then there's the issue of swap pins. I was going to build on my theme from last year and do something jewellery related but with the latest For Keeps issue with Nic's awesome Queen & Co jewellery and with other jewellery themed projects popping up all over the place it's only going to look like a cheap rip-off. Besides, time is running out and I haven't got the energy at the moment to invest into making something really cool. I couldn't do something plain because that's just not my style. If I'm handing out something with my name on it I want to be proud of what I created if you know what I mean. So more than likely no swap pins from me this year...

Cold you say?

So I'm sitting here getting very intimate with my little heater, rugged up in two jerseys and my coat. Yes the heater is on and I'm still freezing! Living in an old villa is not at all romantic when winter really strikes!
I should have gone to KiwiScraps tonight to crop. I'm having visions of their pellet heater. But I felt I had to stay home tonight, because it's John's birthday. Don't know why I bothered really, he went to bed at 7.30... Instead I've been sifting through my photos on the computer, looking for some to use and hoping for inspiration to strike. Had a play in PhotoShop with one of them to use on my next layout and just as I was happy with how it looked the program shut down! Aaaaargh! And nothing saved of course. I think I'll take this as a warning to do another back-up of my pics onto disc. Haven't done that in a while.

Dare #2 is up at No 8 Wired, go check it out! Here's my contribution for this weeks dare: You Did What? Another one with very little paper. The background is done with paint.

My layout is about John's struggle with mental illness. He suffers from bi-polar disorder which greatly affects and disrupts our daily life. We've been going through a rough patch these past months with his depression having a major impact on our relationship. I thought long and hard about making this the topic for this dare but we're pretty open about his illness and I hope to inspire others to also document the ugly side of life (though not necessarily in public like this) because I believe it shapes us into who we are.The journaling reads: I am so sick of this bi-polar beast ruling not just your life but also mine. How do you justify sleeping for 12-14 hours each night when you are a family man? Where's the balance? Let's just hope that in the future we can see the humour in it, but it's certainly no joke living it now!

In case you're wondering: I asked permission to post this publicly and he had no problems with it. Like I said, we're pretty open about it. This layout was very much a form of therapy for me.

Temptation

This CHA business is just not good for me. I'm a sucker for pretty new things and I have seen so much that is just screaming 'buy me'! I mean, how can an alpha-aholic like me resist this and this? And then there are these little cuties and oh tell you what, I suggest you just follow the link and decide for yourself what you cannot live without. Or am I the only one who's in love with it all? I blame Nic for my afliction, she's the ultimate enabler. And then she starts talking about the Scenic Route chipboard and well, I'm a mess. And that's only two new lines... I'm afraid to open any post on message boards that say 'sneak peak' or 'CHA preview' because of the tempations inside.

If you were thinking I haven't done anything in the last two days you are wrong. I have one layout for a challenge on ScrapGal just about finished. Unfortunately I've decided I want my sewing machine, which has gone back to it's owner (MIL) for a bit of a drop of oil and yearly service. Funny woman, she insists on doing it herself, doesn't trust me with it and rightfully so I suppose. So will finish that when I get it back. Isn't it always the case, you don't use it for ages and then when it's gone you urgently need it. And tonight I've been getting messy with paint. Great fun! It's drying now and then it's just a matter of putting it all together. But I won't show you until Friday, ha ha as it's for the next dare.

Sorry for the link overload at the start of this post. I got a bit carried away.
You know I've been so humbled by all the lovely comments that people have left on my blog. I can now see how easily this becomes very addictive. My stat counter is showing me I get returning visits from Australia and even the USA as well. So if you stop by please don't be shy and just say hi, okay?

ETA: Links all fixed now! Thanks Trina.

I got it!!

Yay, just received word that I got picked for a three month guest DT spot at ScrapGal. Go me! LOL. So that and No 8 Wired is going to keep me fairly busy in the next few months. Very cool to see the responses to the dareblog. The New Zealand scrapbooking community is abuzz.

Got some scrapping done last night. I had this awesome pic of Thomas that looked okay in colour but turned out really strong in black and white. So after successfully converting it in Photoshop I was itching to work with it. I actually finished it in one sitting! That doesn't happen very often for me. Anyway, it's pretty clean and graphic for me, but I felt embellishing it would just take away from the photo. Just love those Pressed Petals letters, I'm almost afraid to admit I have 8 different sets...

No 8 Wired

And.... we're off! Check this out! I am so excited to be a part of this.

Excitement is building

(thought I'd post this again in case you missed it underneath the layouts in my previous post)
Two more sleeps and counting down. Bursting with excitement, but am holding it in (only just). You'll have to wait until Saturday to find out the scoop. All will be revealed so check back in then. ;-)

waiting.....

I applied for a store's DT last week at
ScrapGal. I've been part of their community for about 3 months now and totally loving that place. Not overwhelmingly big, genuinely nice people, oodles of talent and awesome challenges! (that I really should do more often). It's only for a guest DT spot for 3 months but I'd love to get 'the call'. Announcement on the 15th so am not so patiently checking my email about three times a day.
With mojo still nowhere in sight I just submitted some of my existing pages which they'd all seen before so not sure if that jeopardized my chances? Anyway, it's about time I added some pics to this blog so will share here too. You may have seen them in galleries elsewhere.








In other news: There's something exciting happening and I can't wait to share.
But will have to leave you guessing until Saturday morning. Check back here if you want to be in on the scoop.

MMM

I've been thinking about Memory Makers Masters lately. The deadline is nearing and I have nothing created for it. I really wanted to give this another go this year after trying it last year (and not getting anywhere, except for my Joy & Comfort being published months later in the Babies issue). I'd like to think of that entry as the starting point for taking my scrapping a bit more seriously. I created a couple of layouts I was really happy with last month that I should have saved for MMM, but of course I was too keen to show them off to the world. Should really learn to control my impulses, LOL. Quite honestly I don't see how I could create five stunning pages in such a short amount of time. I have too much other (nsbr) energy sapping stuff happening in my life. Can't seem to get in the right frame of mind. So realistically I'm a non-entrant this year :-(. Must say I'm pretty bummed about that. Oh well, on to the next competition. For Keeps Awards for Excellence, due in September. That should give me plenty of time to prepare and hold back some pages.

Will have to add a pic of last years MMM Joy & Comfort tomorrow, little girl waking up and needing attention.

Sweet!

What a learning curve this is proving to be. I can see many hours being dedicated to updating and personalizing my blog.
I seem to have lost my 'comments' option on my previous post? Weird....

Good news is that both Thomas and Annabel are out today until about 3.30pm, sweet! I love them to bits but it's nice to have some time to myself and hopefully achieve something. At least I'll have time to work on and hopefully finish my next class project before they come home again. Embarassingly late that project sample *blushing. Am using the brand new released Cherry Arte Party Days line. Bright and funky!
Having a hard time getting anything done lately. Feel like I'm constantly chasing my tail. Not enough hours in the day to do it all! How do real single moms do it?

Whoa! Day two in blogging world and I have 10 comments on my first post?! That's freaky!
Uhm, just added some links just now.

Beautiful day today so I decided to take the kiddies to the park. Thomas is in serious need of practice to ride his bike without training wheels. Only second attempt today. Sigh, living in hilly Wellington doesn't make it any easier for him to try it. Even our street has a bit of a rise in it, which makes it very popular for skateboarders, esp since it's a dead-end, but not so ideal for a 5yo to learn to ride his bike.
They played beautifully together and it really made me feel like I'm doing something right after all. These holidays T has been a handful to put it mildly. Can't wait for school to start again.

John behaving his usual @*h self again. Living with a bi-polar partner is not good for your bloodpressure I tell you. I think the frustration of daily life at the moment has scared my creative spark away as well. Not much good is coming out of my hands these days, and what little I have done I usually hate the next day. In the past few weeks I have done two layouts three times over each. How sad is that?

Exciting stuff happening on the scrapping front pretty soon. I'll keep you posted.

Well here I am, finally joining the blogging world. It was only a matter of time really... I bet it's going to be a steep lurning curve. ;-)