MISSING ALERT!!

Missing: One desk, approx 1m tall, 1.5m wide, medium build, often seen hanging around with a blue desk chair.

Where is my desk??!!

Somewhere here, under all this junk is my desk. Yep, the messy desk is back!! It has been 1.5wks since I was in Canberra with Yvette and yet my stuff is still in the bags I took it away in! Why can I not seem to keep this area tidy? All those scrap rooms they profile in CK really put me to shame, especially since this month the chick had a gorgeous room off the living area which she keeps totally tidy. And here is mine, also off the living area (I have the most patient flatmate in the world!!) in full view of everyone. Luckily my friends/family are understanding (well, they at least understand I'm not going to change easily!!) and no-one mentions how messy this is.

So... further to my urban renewal I have bought some really nice baskets to make my scrap area a bit tidier and more acceptable!! Mostly the shelves really, which are off to the right, and by cleaning them up I can sort out my desk a bit more. That's the plan anyway!!

And happy days.... I am actually purging a whole bunch of stuff.. WOO HOO!!! I found stuff I have been hoarding for years that I don't like, so its going. YAY!!

Wish me luck!

:) C

The last of my Yvette-inspired pages.

Here it is, the final page I did with Yvette last weekend! This one is kinda using the Freestyle Patchwork technique that is in a current Kim Archer class (I just kinda copied Yvette as she did a page, hope thats ok!) This is a fantastic technique for using up all those scraps of your favourite papers (and you know I have a lot of scraps!!) So these papers by American Crafts and SEI are my faves at the moment (I love graphic designs) and I love the hot pink KI memories lace cardstock!. Wow, just looking at these pics makes my feet so itchy to go back!! I am a traveller by nature I think. It's all those trips from Grafton to Sydney when I was growing up! The journalling spot is by Yvette and you can find them at her etsy store, I just love them and the coloured ones are so cool!
Hope you had a good weekend! The Hen's night I went to was fun!
:)C

A Weekend Treat

Wow, I have been super busy the last 2 days and didn't get to do my normal breakfast post! I was going to post last night when I got home from work but my friends and I ended up driving into the city at Midnight and getting Harry's Cafe De Wheels pies. It's such a fun thing to do- be spontaneous and head into the city just cos one person is a bit hungry!! There is always some interesting group of people there, the fully sik guys in their hotted-up doosh doosh cars, the Tokyo-Style Asians, drunk people (we even saw a drunk guy one time order his pie then go around the side of the caravan and wee against it, only about 2m away from us. We were like... "EWWW!!! He's peeing on your caravan!!", the pie people couldn't believe it!! And this wasn't a kid, it was a middle aged man in a suit!! And yes he did come back and pick up his pie like nothing had happened!!) Last night it was the Harley Davidson crowd, man they are sooooo loud!! No way would I want to live in the vicinity of Harry's, it's mayhem!
Anywho... back to the pages...
Here is the 4th LO I finished at Yvette's, it's from Felicity's Birthday last year. She had a black and white party, but as the guest of honour she wore a beautiful red top. It was awesome to see everyone dressed just in B&W and it seemed like a great theme cos everyone has something black or white they could wear! I had heaps of fun dressing up and Fliss said I looked super funky {curtsying to the compliment!!}.
The felt frame I got at the Stitches and Craft show from Memories2remember, I got the tiny collection of chipboard shapes there too in a grab bag of goodies for $2.50, such a bargain. That American Crafts filligree paper is one of my faves at the moment, it's such beautiful colours and a great pattern, I love clean graphic prints like that! Hence I love that KI black and white circles paper too!

And as a gift to you, here is the 5th page I did cos I was so slack in posting these last 2 days!! It shows pics from my friend's housewarming where we went crazy on the karaoke mike!! This thing is amazing.. you just plug it into the TV and all the computery stuff is located within the Mike and you have thousands of songs to choose from on the computer chip in the mike and you can update the chips anytime! So cool!! It has taken me a little while to get comfy singing in front of my friends, but I go crazy now! We were choosing songs for each other to sing, it was hillarious! I've got a Hen's Night House Party tonight and the Hen owns this mike so we'll be "going off!!" I'm sure!! {giggling in anticipation!}
I really just made this page so I could use my Rock Star Rub ons by Creative Imaginations!! Lol!
:) C

Friends will be friends...

Here is the third LO I made on my weekend with Yvette. It's about the wonderful bunch of friends I have. I love them! We have so much fun together, hanging out at work and after work, going to dinner, playing soccer, going to the beach or shopping. These are the best friends I've had since High School and I wanted to showcase them on a cool and funky LO. So here it is! It is actually a double LO but they are kinda seperate pages too. The left page introduces everyone and the right page talks about how we're all from different backgrounds but thats not a prob cos we're still great friends (and has some of my fave fun and silly pics!).

I used some more of Yvette's cool Kraft journalling spots, cut them in half and stuck them along the sewn border lines on the page as name tags, and used a big one on the facing page for some journalling. I love those Robot rub-ons- they're by Hambly (from 2 peas) and the arrow stickers are by Sass Lass. The tiny little word stickers were given to me by Yvette and I hadn't intended to use them on this LO but when I grabbed my trimmer "the crazy bunch" had stuck itself to the trimmer and I knew had to use it! It so perfectly describes us!

So.. off to do some housework before work. Happy Hump Day of the Week!

:) C

LO #2 from the weekend

This is the second layout I finished on my weekend with Yvette. I started out wanting it to be a 2 page LO but it just wasn't working for me, so I culled half the pics and stuck with these ones to make it a single page.
So the Yvette inspired bits on this page are the collage piece in the corner, I was just fiddling around with stuff and she pipes up "Oh, I like that!" I immediatly froze with my hands wavering over the page thinking...STOP! Don't change anything!! Lol! I love the little Maya Road bird Rub Ons, one is black for Will and one is white for me ;) LOL!!
Yvette also helped me sneakily make the letter "t" in the white rub ons cos I'd run out! You have no idea how easily a Z makes a T!! {chuckling slyly}. I love her little tiny kraft journalling spot too, they're new and you can find them in her Etsy store.
The journalling style was inspired by Mardi, I love her work and it was fun to have a new journalling style in my album! Although I'm still in love with Yvette's journalling spots, they are so cool!
So I am impressed with this LO too, it came together pretty easily and used lots of my new product from 2 peas! The Artisan shape is by Sassafras Lass and the Arrow is from Scenic Route.
Thanks for dropping by!
:) C

Sisters Of Scrap

Wow, I had an awesome time visiting Yvette and scrappin the weekend away! We chatted, scrapped, listened to music, made Bakerella cupcake pops and just had fun together :)

Yvette is a great inspiration and mentor to me, a great teacher and a wonderful scrapper and I thoroughly enjoyed sapping all her creative juices and using them as my own! Although I cringed every time I brought out a piece of paper and Yvette would say "oh I used to have that paper" and I'd be like "What, about 5 years ago?" Yes I know I need to use through my stuff or get rid of it!! I'm not a scrapping machine like you!! Lol! But I am willing to learn :)

It was a SUPER productive weekend, with me surpassing my goal of 3 finished paged and 1 unfinished, I finished 4 pages and have 2 that only need journalling... Yippee!! I'm going to post them one at a time this week, so as to not overwhelm you ;) and cos I've got a busy week ahead and probably wont get much of a chance to create this week!

This page is about the Icecream tradition we have in our family, where after we have a swim at the beach or the local pool Dad would always buy us an icecream! We usually had a budget of about 60-80c which was enough for a water icypole (which I loved), a Paddle Pop, or a Bubble O' Bill and we could choose whichever icecream we wanted. Although Dad would always buy Mum something more expensive like a Gaytime!

Thanks for all your inspiration Yvette, I just loved coming to stay and scrap with you, and it was so productive! Once I do the journalling on the last 2 pages I will have done over 52 pages this year, which was my goal for the entire year! So THANK YOU!!

:) C

Road Trippin.. down to the ACT.

Guess where I'm going tomorrow morning... to visit Yvette!! Y'all know she's my sister right? Yep, I own all this scrapping prowess in my family, and that's why I'm going to Canberra, so Yvette and I can scrap the weekend away!! YAY!!!!! {happy dancing and waving arms around like a crazy woman}. I have set a goal of 3 finished pages and 1 unfinished page... hmm.... nothing like setting self a massive target! For me thats a lot of scrappin in one go, but I'm sure with Yvette only an arm's length away it will be no prob!!
I do have one prob though. Every time I go somewhere to scrap, be it to Canberra, to Felicity's (another sis of ours) or on holidays I have to take everything I own. I have no ability to imagine what I need and I always get annoyed if my page is unfinished cos it's missing one little thing that I could have brought with me... so I take everything. Last time I went to Yvette's I took a massive Ikea bag full of stuff. I'm hopeless! I did finish 2 pages there and almost a 3rd (I just realised that means my new target of 3 finished and 1 unfinished may not be as impossible as first thought!! Yay!) so taking everything did pretty much pay off. Plus I want to do some show and tell with Yvette of all the stuff I ordered from 2 peas and got at the Stitches and Craft show!
It'll be so much fun, I can't wait!! {woo hoo!!}. Hopefully I'll have some good stuff to post on Monday!
:) C

Mr Puffy comes to visit.

Look who came to say hello again! I was just sitting on my verandah contemplating life and relaxing on Sunday when who should fly up to say hello but my old (giant Kookaburra) friend Mr Puffy (so called for his amazing ability to fluff to double his size!).

I had my feet up on the verandah railing so he wasn't going to get too close (maybe he doesn't want a nibble after all!) but sat on the closest branch of the closest tree. Mrs Puffy (slightly smaller, less fluffy version) was sitting on the fence over to the far right (out of shot) too. Then who should come along but a small Kookaburra who sat down next to Mr Puffy. I was like "Oh wow, Mr Puffy is actually Puff Daddy!" {hyserically laughing out loud at own joke} It's true though!! Then we got this fall of misty rain and Baby Puff flew away to his mother and Mr Puffy AKA Puff Daddy sucked all his feathers in and relaxed in the misty shower with me. So nice :) Thanks for visiting Mr Puffy! You made my day.

:) C

Strawberry Fields

I needed to make some Thank You cards for my box and when I discovered this Strawberry Paper by "Paper Patch" in my stash (seriously, it's at least 5 years old!! OMG!! Do Paper Patch even still exist?) I knew it would be so cute with my Papertrey Ink Strawberries and cute sentiments! The green/cream stripe by Chatterbox is probably also about 5 years old too... man I need to get cracking on using up old supplies! I'm trying!!

So I stamped the Strawberries and the "Thank you Berry Much" sentiment onto a white scallop oval I cut out with my Marvy punch. I love that red and white spotty ribbon, it's so luscious and bold, it really sweetens up these cards!

And of course, when you're onto a good design.. stick with it! I made 3 cards in total with the green/red/strawberry design. This second one is probably my fave cos I love those 2 big flowers! Oh that's another thing I haven't even put a dint in, in the last 3 years. My prima flower collection. Do they multiply in the jars? Cos I have used so many and the level of flowers in the jars seem to be exactly the same!! What the?

This third card uses another one of the sentiments in the Papertrey set.. "May the Simple Joys of Life be Yours". How sweet is that! I thought it also went nicely with the Strawberries. My Real Red SU stamp pad is just so juicy that it made it hard to stamp out that little strawberry clearly. And when I stamped this one it splashed a tiny little red dot of ink on the white scallop.. so annoyed!! So I covered it with 2 little bling kaisercraft jewels! HA!! That'll teach you red stamp pad, I am infallible!

:) C

The time for Urban Renewal has come..

I love this lamp! Happy me {happy dancing around the room a'la Indian style}. It's part of the new Urban Renewal that is happening to my house. Ok..its the only thing that has happened so far, but all Urban Renewal has to start somewhere. And mine started with some inspiration from the mountain of catalogues that I managed to haul out of my mailbox on Wednesday. If there is something Brownville has going for it, it's the amount of Junk Mail we get. I love it! (Sorry all you environmentalists, but it's my one outlet!!) I started tearing out all the pics that inspired me, and one happened to be of a bunch of lamps at Target. Well, when I went there today, guess who was having 25% off.. mm hmm... it was Target's electrical!! Happy days! Now here's where it gets complicated.. Target's mix and match lamps and shades have letters: e.g. A shade matches with A base, B with B base etc... well I was sure this base was a C (I read it with my apparently lying eyes) and I searched everywhere for a C shade I liked... and I found this one!! I love them together! The shade is actually a deeper purple IRL, so beautiful and the base is stacked glass balls.. so cool! Then when I got to the counter I had one last read of the packaging and realised the base is a B and the shade is a C. At this point the lady behind me said "ohh... I love that shade, it would go so well with my curtains.. were there more?" I answered her "only one I think", as I grasped mine just that little bit tighter and further away from her... I wasn't going to let this shade go!! (being on sale from $17 to $8 may have had something to do with it too!) Anywho, as I walked around the shopping centre I could see all these women eyeing off my lamp and the checkout chick at the fruit and veg shop said she wanted it too! I was hanging onto it soooo tight by this stage!! So the big question is... Does anyone know why you're not supposed to match a B base with a C shade? They seem to fit pretty well to me! I'm just imagining it spontaneously bursting into flames sometime while i'm watching TV, just to teach me a lesson that B goes with B and C with C. So.. the lamp cost me $29 all together and is hopefully, the beginning of something great for my lounge room!
:)C

Hawaii... oh how I miss you.

Here's a little page I made of Will's first impressions of Hawaii. I was so happy that he was just as excited, happy and thrilled to be on holidays in Hawaii as I was! He was so patient with me as I shopped and shopped and shopped. Although he did enjoy shopping a bit too- being able to increase his massive boardshorts collection and finding that all our Aussie surf brands are only $20 for a shirt in Hawaii!! I think he almost came home with as big-a-bunch of new clothes as I did!

So there are a few new things on this page, but it didn't end up being as many as I had laid out on my desk! Oh well, there's no rush to use the new stuff, by my record it should take me about 5 years to get around to using some of it!!

The "lovin it" rub on is new- its Cosmo Cricket (think: fat free, sugar free {giggling}), the collection of stuff in the bottom left corner is mostly new too- the owl and the $ (cos Will's standing in front of Armarni- BTW Hawaii has the 3 different Armani stores, much to Will's excitement cos it means they must be rich over there... yes he did get one shirt!!) Also the rub on tape was new too, but it didn't like rubbing onto this smooth BG paper, I had to rough it up a little with an emery board.. there's a tip for you. The wiggly arrow came from Yvette (thanks!!), I pressed it into my Orange SU ink pad and it came out exactly the right colour. WOW!! The BG paper I got at Stitches and Craft, once again I am impressed with KaiserCraft, what a top Aussie Company, I love their stuff.

So Thursday... it's eating out night tonight... Mmmmm KFC. I better go for a run!

:) C

New stuff = Happy Me :)

So I finally made a page with my new scrappin stuff! It was a fully hectic weekend again (not as in fully sik); I went with one of my sisters down to Wollongong for Father's Day {hi Dad!! waving and wondering if he ever reads my blog!}. Then we came back Sunday and ended up spending the afternoon shopping (under the pretence that she was shopping for things to take overseas with her.. yeah right!). A pair of jeans, 2 bags, a singlet and a cardi later (all for me!) and I vowed not to go shopping with her for a while! She's a killer for my Credit Card ("oh but that is so you... its so cute...it fits you so well.. this is perfect for you... that's straight from Top Shop" etc etc)! Although she did manage to find a pair of black pants without dragging me around 25 stores and trying on 65 pairs that I thought looked exactly the same ("these are too short, I didn't want a pocket there, the waist band is too wide, the waist band is too narrow, I don't like the belt loops, I wanted straight leg, the fly is too short.." etc. Some of you may have guessed which sister I am referring to!)
So after all that, there was no time for scrappin!

Sometime later I managed this page:

So, whaddaya think? Lol. Pink and blue, love it! There are a few new things here.. the flower journalling spot, Maya Road owl rub on, cool Doodlebug letter stickers, heart sticker from Sass Lass, the pink KI lace cardstock and the tiny arrow rub on (Cosmo Cricket- I love it cos on the back of the pack it says Acid Free, lignen free, sugar free, fat free... HAHAHA!! No joke, go read your packet!) The BG paper is by SEI and I got in a value pack at the Darling Harbour show in June- 24 pieces $12- total bargain cos I really love them! I wish the stand was at the Stitches and Craft but they weren't {sad sad face}. So anywho, this was the page. Ok, so it doesn't showcase a whole lot of new product, but I'm going to be honest... I just bought the new product to add to my stash so I can have some pretty things to look through now and then, and to admire the beautiful stuff as it clogs up my desk. That's what you do with new stuff isn't it Mum? I think I learnt that from you :)

:) C

P.s. Notice my Hawaiian tan in the pic!! Sweet! Take me back there!!

New Goodies.... Woo Hoo!!

What a happy Friday...my Two Peas parcel arrived today!! YAYYYYYY!!! {Dancing around the room "Cotton-Eye Joe" style}. How excited am I? I have new papers, Thickers, rub-ons, stickers, chipboard, die cuts, stamps, journal spots and MORE!! Woo hoo!!

I got lots of Cosmo Cricket "Mr Campy" line ready for Will and my roadtrip/beach/fishing holiday in Oct {excited smile!!} I also got a bit of cool boy stuff so I can make nice pages of Cooper (I have lots of girly flowers, hearts etc but no boy stuff!!), some funky designs in rub-ons (i love the man/woman ones and I got them in Stamps too!- YAY!!) so I can do funky pages of Will and I and our friends, as well as heaps of other fun stuff. Of course I got Owls and Trees (love it), oh and arrows (LOL!). The pink Damask paper at the top has 3 white journal spots in a tear off strip down the side.. I thought that was pretty ingenious! And a couple more sheets of die-cut cardstock.. nice. I'm so excited to use it all now!!

:) C

P.S 5 posts in 5 days.. are you impressed :)

Pink Hooter (LOL!)

I made another Owl card (surprise, surprise!!) I just loved the LO and card I made in this style and when I saw the kwerner Colour Challenge for this week I knew I wanted to remake the Owl card in her chosen colours!! How gorgeous are those shoes! I wish we had Old Navy over here. I can't wait for summer to come so I can get out all my bright colours again! I love floaty summer dresses and bright T-Shirts... bring it on!!

I didn't have Pacific Point (blue) and Kiwi Kiss (green) cos they aren't available here in Australia yet, so I used Tempting Turqoise and Old Olive. The paper is Stampin Up DS paper that was available in the Summer Mini Catalogue. I drew the lines on the Whisper White branch using my Gelly Roll glitter pen.. I love it!! The Owl is Maya Road, the sentiment Hero Arts, Speech Bubble is October Afternoon. I blinged up the Owl's ear with a tiny ribbon bow :)
I think this card may be for someone else's birthday soon too.. any guesses?
:) C

And a Card to Match...

After the success of yesterday's Layout, I decided to make a card to match! Actually it was mainly because I had stamped out the Maya Road Owl in River Rock but decided I liked the Choc Chip better for the LO so used that one, and this owl was just sitting on my desk. I grabbed some of the left over brown cardstock from the tree (I had to dig this bit out of the bin actually!), this bit had been my practice bit for drawing the lines so I didn't even have to do that! I stamped more leaves with the SU Paint Prints set, stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts then stamped the speech bubble that comes in the October Afternoon Owl set over the sentiment. I did the speech bubble second cos it's a clear stamp so I could line it up really well over the Hero Arts stamp which is Wood mounted and therefore harder to see where you're putting it! Then you stick it all down, with the speech bubble up on foam tape and viola... done! It is soooo sweet, I love it! I may have to put it in my personal card box for someone's birthday soon...

:) C

Thief Alert!

To the person who's Mojo I stole... I'm so so sorry, but so so thankful!! I have no idea what's happening, but I just finished this layout in under 1 hour- that is totally not me! And look how much work is in it! Usually I sit and shuffle for hours, or leave it all set up on my desk and do other stuff and come back to it now and then.. but this one I just sat down, grabbed some photos, grabbed some scraps of paper that were on my desk and it all fell together. I love that! {happy dance!}
I even hand drew and cut the tree and drew the "growing" lines on it (what are those things called?) The leaf stamp is from a retired Stampin Up set called Paint Prints, I always thought I'd use the flowers from the set but I never have and I have used the leaf and the block stamp in the set heaps! Loving that Maya Road Owl stamp too :) I know the papers on this page are way old (I have had them for at least 4 years!) but they suited the colours of the photo really well and I like the way it turned out! And now they are no longer clogging up my scraps stash so woop-ee!! I even had that red outer frame piece already cut sitting on my desk from another project that I never started- how amazing that it fit so well with this page! Can you tell I'm a bit pleased with myself? {chuckling} Cos I finished a page and Dr Phil hasn't even started yet!
So, I'm sorry if if was your Mojo, but please can I keep it for a little longer? I'm really enjoying it!
:) C