Wishing I was there

Did that twice today. First this morning as I struggle for the third day in a row with an asthma attack and the kids are misbehaving and it just gets all a bit too much. Wishing I was at Scrap Camp, minus asthma attack obviously. (much better now, steroids have kicked in so doing better)
Second time late afternoon. Thomas came back all excited from a visit to the Porirua mall. There had been a Santa Parade and there were all sorts of activities happening under the canopy apparently. There was a performance by Ben from NZ Idol (4th place? not sure I'm going by my son's account of things) and Thomas and Annabel watched and danced. Then Ben pulled Thomas up on the stage with him where he danced and danced. I asked Thomas if it had made him nervous with all those people watching but he replied that he didn't mind it at all and actually enjoyed it! I so wished I could have seen him perform in front of all those people. I don't know what it is with that, even with the school production or just a simple school assembly where he goes up on stage to perform, I just get this big lump in my throat and often have to blink away the tears. He is such a natural, so full of life and confidence. Makes my heart burst with pride. And yes I admit it makes me a little reflective too. When and why did I lose that confidence, that believe in myself and my abilities? I think I know the answer but I'm not sure that I like it.

Zesty....

For the past two weeks I have been playing with the yummie goodies that make up the Lime Tart November 12x12 kit. Deja View papers and co-ordinating Bazzills, Cosmo Cricket cigar box, ribbon gallore, Chipboard borders, rub ons... Just wonderful stuff in rich colours. I loved it and can't wait for next months kit. Philippa has great taste!
The girls all made some wonderful creations and I encourage you to check them out in the gallery. Oh and for some added inspiration there is the Zest News too!
Here's a sneeky peak of my projects. For the full versions you'll have to check out the Lime Tart gallery.





Oh and for those of you that already emailed me to say how wonderful the projects looked, thank you so much! It made my day :-)

World Wide Dare

Would you believe it? We've pulled of a World Wide Dare! The girls from the four Dare blogs: The Effers (USA), How Dare You (Australia), Speshal (UK) and our very own No 8 Wired have joined forces to bring you a world wide dare. We all added our own dare and then had to create a layout using all of these:
scrap a childhood dream or memory
cover the entire page
use paint somewhere
title on the photo

Rummaging through my childhood photos certainly brought back a lot of memories and caused an even greater flood of emotions. I found it personally very hard. But I'm glad I did it!
Huge props to Lianne who has collated all our entries for this one. Some of us (me included) left it to the very very last minute to finish.
Before you run off to check all the layouts, here's mine:

Tribute layouts

Two very talented ladies are leaving the Scrapgal Exec DT for other opportunities. I am sad to see them go but grateful at the same time as it has mean I am taking one place.;-). We all did a lift of their work as a final thank you. It's not a farewell as they have both assured us to still be around every day.
Here are my interpretations of their styles. I haven't lifted a particular layout for either of them, mainly because I majorly suck at scraplifting. I just can't do it!
So for the fabulously talented Celeste Smith a very clean layout (excuse the curve in the paper) with emphasis on the photo and title:




And for the loud (in a good way) and busy Leslie Ashe one with circles, buttons and black with white dots as that is what I see recurring in her layouts:

I made the above layout with the papers (Urban Lily) that Philippa had added to the November kit for Lime Tart as suprise goodies. Aren't I a lucky girl? Transparency is Hambly (yay I got the nerve to cut it!)