Cooking Up a Storm!!

I may have mentioned in passing once before, that it is my birthday tomorrow {wink!}. And y'all know I'm having a Halloween Party (check the date, yep Jan 31! Unconventionalism is my middle name, or is Danger my middle name? I forget. Anywho....) I decided to make my birthday cake after being inspired by a cake in Martha Stewart Living mag back in October. Thankfully I was able to sell one of my kidneys to pay for the $15.00 price of the magazine from Borders. Damn imported mags!! So tonight I went straight to Woolies after work to buy food for the party and made it home at 7:30. I took stock of myself and the kitchen and at 7:50 began cooking. In just over 2 hours I made 2 Mississippi Mud Cakes (Yvette's delicious recipe {hugs!}), brownies and Almond Roca (a request from my work friends). Needless to say now I am Pooped!! Totally! I think so much butter soaked into my skin that I will just slip and slide into bed tonight!! In total there were 4 pats of butter used in the recipes, whoa!!

I made 2 Mud cakes so that I could trim one about an inch in, layer it on top of the other mud cake and make a "mountain" on which to set up the Cemetary which adorns the top of the cake (buscuits dipped in chocolate for the tombstones and a chocolate stick fence!) Here is the adulterated cake cos I "had to check if it would trim well" (what I really mean is "I wanted to eat some while it was hot!" {delicious!})

Wow, so tired. But it's only 37mins til my birthday, I'm going to stay up damn it!!

The other fun news I have is that these little beauties arrived in the mail on Wednesday...

Hurrah Hurrah!! I have been wanting to get them ever since I saw them back in about September last year they are way way way way cool! Yvette alerted me to them being on a local scrap site (not to be exxposed) for $49 for the small sets and $59 for the big one. I couldn't believe it! I had paid $22 for my first sets!! I bought my first sets off the KISS stall at the Darling Harbour Quilt Fair and Lana the lovely owner had given me a flyer with her email and told me I could email if I ever wanted to buy more Nestabilites. Well, I emailed her and she quoted me the bargain price of $33 each for the small ones and $37 for the big one. WHAT!! Can you believe the difference!! WHOA!! {Happy Dancing Iriquois Indian style}. I had to get them all (and an embossing mat to use with them for $3. Hehe!) I am just so pleased with the price, I mean its a $54 saving!! I recommend everyone buy off her, what a bargain! Her email is here.

So I am a happy girl! Most of the cooking is done for my party and I got New Nestabilites and it's my birthday in under half an hour!

Quick my last wise words as a 26yo: Never play Leapfrog with a Unicorn.

:) C

Book about me, last few pages...

I think these will be the last few pages of my "Being Charlotte Kingman" book that I'll be able to have time to make before my birthday in 2 sleeps time! I wanted to have all the pages done but I still have some pics sitting around on my desk and some ideas still in my head! But I think I am about 3/4 of the way through, so it's not too bad!

Ah owls.. I love them! Have you guessed yet, considering all the Owls that appear here and there in my cards and on my pages?!! It all started with one long silver Owl necklace Alicia thought I would love from America. And she was right!! Now I have 3 owl necklaces, earrings, Christmas decorations, keyring, T-shirt, Jumper, figurine and Statue, is that too much? I can't help it, they are just so so cute! I love them! I think all the graphic images are the cutest (see the rub-on on this page and the cute one on my shirt). I really want to get some Owl wall art to brighten up Brownville a bit more, I think that would be awesome!!

So I decided to do a page on my bookshelf too, seeing as reading is a big part of my daily schedule. I love novels, both fact and fiction. My fave author is Diana Gabaldon and I absolutely LOVE the Outlander series (or Cross Stitch for us Aussies), I also love crime/forensics like Kathy Reichs (Bones is one of my fave shows on TV too!) and Patricia Cornwell. Of course I have the Harry Potter books and I have read all of Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series! Thats a lot of books! At the moment I am reading a non-fiction about Louis XIV's mistress Athenais. Very interesting lives those Frenchies lead in the 17th Century! I think this is the era when the French got their reputation for Love Makers. And for being Nancy Boys too though! It might go hand in hand!!

:) C

Collage #3 for Project 365.

It's almost my birthday (3 more sleeps!) and I am still taking pics for Project 365 what an effort {blowing on a hooter and waving arms}. Hurrah Hurrah!!
Project 365 is the aim to take a pic a day for a whole year. I know most people are using this as a way to better their photography skills and learn how to take better pics. I'm just trying to find something interesting to take a pic of. Seriously, a milk bottle? Ok, that pic is because every year around my birthday I try to find a carton of milk with my Birth date as the expiry date. Odd? Yes. I know. But it's become somewhat of a tradition for me and I must never miss doing this around my birthday!
Other things done this last 9 days worth of pics are: Get a blood test for my Diabetes, help Felicity make Cooper's First birthday invites one night after work,(40 invites- 3 hours start to finish. Not bad!), washing (I need to remember the every day too!), my birthday bottle, work lunch with the boys, spending the whole day on Alicia's sooo comfy lounge watching foxtel, Awesome!, Kung Hei Fat Choy! (Happy Chinese New Year!) at Will's house, Australia Day in the city with Alicia and my new Uber Cool apple lamp. Yep, an apple with a bulb inside. Pure genious!
Happy Hump Day!
:)C

Happy Australia Day!!

Happy Australia Day everyone!! I wanted to post yesterday but I was out AAAAALLLLLLLLL day! Alicia and I didn't get to go on one of the Ferries in the Annual Australia Day Ferry Race this year, but we still made the trek into the city in our matching Aussie singlets with flags in tow! We ate a delicious breakfast at The Rocks Cafe (I recommend the Pancakes- so fluffy and perfect- and Alicia recommends the Mushroom Crepe with Creme Fraiche. It was fantastic she said!) then we walked around the foreshore, through the Rocks Markets and watched the Ferries cross the finish line under the Harbour Bridge (I think the Giant Samsung Rubber Ducky won this year!). Seeing as we would usually be enjoying a champagne on the Ferry we couldn't let our Annual Harbour Champagne pass us by, so we went to Cruise Bar at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay for a cool refreshing glass. It was delicious! I so enjoyed hanging out in the city, chatting with my sis and celebrating our country! We toasted to Captain Cook on a job well done {wink}. He beat those pesky Frenchmen (if my memory serves me right) by a mere breeze, otherwise we would have all been saying Cei la vie yesterday instead of Happy Australia Day!
I also had an Australia Day BBQ last night so there was more celebrating to be done! We played Wii all night which was hillarious! Someone decided the Dance game was heaps better if you had back up dancers, and watching Will doing his version of Aerobics moves had me in stitches! Thankfully my camera has a video function so I can relive the moment over and over. I know what I'll be watching if I have a stressful day at work!
I hope you got out there and Celebrated our Lucky Country!

:) C

P.s. The Obligatory pic of the "Charlotte" ferry that I always seem to get when I'm in the city!

Hot. Boy it's hot. Did I mention Hot?

Pour me into a tall glass over ice and sip me..... I've melted! Wow, what a stinker of a day! It was 40ºC here today and the minute I stepped into the sun I could feel the burn begin! Luckily for me I have sisters who love me and I spent today basking in Alicia's Air-con watching her Foxtel. Hurrah for Foxtel! We did venture out to spend vast amounts of my long earned peanuts from work (this always happens when you step near any cool shop with Alicia. She's so enthusiastic and knowledgeable.. this time it only cos me $60. Phew!) and I got 2 uber cool lamps. Keep your eyes out for them in a later post. Too cool. Now there is a forgivingly cool wind and I am no longer sticking to my chair with sweat. Double Hurrah!

So back to the Scrapping.. Here are 2 more pages in my Book about Me. You can see other pages posted here and here and here. Only 1 week to go til my birthday so I'd better get cracking! {Whooot-chir. That's a whip noise BTW.}

Have I mentioned I love baking (yeah, about a million times!) so I had to do a page highlighting some of the cute cupcakes I've made! Oh I love creating and choosing new ways to decorate them! I'm so happy to have this cupcake paper in my album too, it's so cute!

One of my other passions at the moment is Yellow Clothing. Who would have thought? It started with the yellow dress Alicia bought me at Wetseal on one of her trips and blossomed from there! Yellow Clothes HAD to make an apperance in my album cos they have been such an obvious part of my wardrobe this year! I got the cutest yellow bikini when we were on hols in Yamba too.. Love it!

Hope you've cooled off a little too!

:) C

Blue and Red Boys.

Damn it. Why is my computer desk located in such proximity to the kitchen bin? The wafting aroma is reminding me its time to take the bin out, but its pretty low on my to-do list. I might have to bump it up the list a little if I sit here much longer... it STINKS!! {crinkling nose}. I don't even know what is in there that is so stinky. Anywho, it's gotta go.... Later.

A couple more boy/man cards to share today. I ended up making 5 cards last night, which was pretty cool. The box is quite boosted up now! These cards are really simple, just using scraps out of my bag of little pieces. I like pulling out all the little pieces and seeing what goes together! But man I am a hoarder. I keep the tiniest little bits of paper, like a squirrel preparing for the Armageddon (not just winter!!). Or maybe like the Squirrel on Ice Age. That guys has determination, I like his style. The frame was an experiment when I first got my Nestabilities, I'm so happy to have finally used it and got it off my desk!

This next one is a simple card with a cute little felt present adornment! Love it! I die cut the Scalloped Rectangle out of the Fiskars INk range paper and stuck a cute tiny little silver star on it also. I like "Wishing you the best day ever" as a sentiment. It's how I feel about birthdays! I love them to be special and all about you. Birthdays always were special in my family when we were growing up (and even til now), you open presents in bed, someone makes your bed for you, you get to choose what shaped cake you want and what you want for dinner! Love it! It is the Best Day Ever for me!

The third card I hate. I think I will put it in the box just to see if anyone buys it (then I will eat my words {munch}). I thought I was the only person who didn't like some things they make (and still persist in looking at them and not chucking them in the bin) but I read on a blog yesterday one woman hates almost everything she makes (she said she was her own worst critic!) This made me feel so much better!! I don't usually hate a lot of my work, just now and then. And this is now. I grabbed a whole bunch of small scraps out of my bag and stuck them all together and hoped they worked. What do you think? It doesn't really look toooooo bad IRL, here it's the dog's breakfast. Mock me, if you wish. I can take it. And here, I deserve it! Gross!

P.s. My endocrinologist gave me a smile today (not her usual Stern Librarian look) after my HbA1C (3 monthly average blood sugar level) was down 0.8% which brings me back into the "Adequate control" range. Woo Hoo! {High Five!} Pat me on the back will you... yeah like that... thanks.

:) C

Grunge It Up.

Skulls, grunge, orange and black. It's not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure! But when Alicia said she needed some more man cards I set about making some different ones (she is my best customer after all {hugs!!}). I haven't used the orange and black colour scheme before and it was fun! I think they turned out quite well :) Mum will probably hate them! I didn't want to make them too involved and full of layers (being "involved" makes me think they are a bit too girly cos I imagine different beautiful papers and flowers and colouring- and guys just don't care!) I do love this skull, its quite anatomical really, with the sockets, cavities and fissures. It must hark back to my Developmental and Comparative Anatomy days at Uni, they were my favourite subjects! The 'wishing you a one of a kind birthday' is the most boy-ish birthday sentiment I have too, so it gets a real beating. Guy stuff is really hard to come by! Let me know if you find any cool guy stamps {wishing someone would have made stamps of some of the cool drawings on the desks and walls at school! There were some truly talented kids there!.} The PP is from Fiskar's Ink range which is the same range as the stamps are from. It's really cool to have matching paper and stamps- I never usually do! I have ordered some new Stampin Up papers which will match my SU stamps too. I can't wait to use them!
Happy Hump Day of the Week! Tomorrow is "out to dinner" night with my work friends. Yippee!!
:) C

Project 365 collage #2

Wow, I am 20 days down and still taking pics! What an effort! This week I have done some more exciting things so there are more interesting pics :) The highlights this week included a shopping trip to Newtown with Willy, seeing Felicity and Cooper 3 times, getting my hair cut, having brunch with Alicia and Felicity at Cafe Taste {YUM!} and my first Stampin Up party of 2009.

I can't believe I'm still going, after 20 days! I like viewing these pics in the collages too, its a cool overview of the last 9 days!

:) C

First Stampin Up Workshop of 2009.

I did a fun, chatty, busy, loud, enthusiastic Stampin Up workshop today which was awesome! It was my first for 2009 and the ladies were so lovely. A big cheers to my Hostess, Natalie! She has lovely friends (my sis included {wink!}) and they were mostly new to Stamping so it was lots of fun introducing these ladies to the joys of Stampin Up and watching their enthusiasm! We made 2 simple cards, one for the kiddies and a more adult card (I don't mean the XXX kind! {giggles})
My Bugs and Kisses set has seen quite a bit of ink, as far as my SU stamps go. It's such a cute set for babies and little kids. This was a simple card to introduce the ladies into stamping and they had a lot of fun choosing the bugs and colours. It always amuses me to see people starting out with stamping and having a go for the first time! They are always so nervous and spend ages hovvering above the cardstock, too nervous to press the stamp to the paper! It has been SO long since I was at that stage! I love watching other people blossom into confident card makers though!
The second card we made was with A Happy Heart set from the new Mini Catalogue. I just LOVE {heart glowing} the fact that the dandylion seeds are tiny tiny hearts!! Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? I think so :) The flourish is from Baroque Motifs and the Square scallop punch is out of the mini catalogue too.
I have read a few comments from blogs saying Baroque Motifs is in their top 2 Favourite SU sets of all time. Felicity and I tried googling it cos I wanted to see if there was actually a list of the best sellers ever but we couldn't find any info. If anyone knows, give me a heads up! I'm so curious to find out which sets are the most popular!!
I hope y'all had a good weekend!
:) C

Birthday Invites.. Spook your socks off!

Did I mention it's my birthday at the end of the month? No? Oh wait.. only about a million times! Well this year I have decided to have a party. And since I missed out on Alicia's Halloween Party back in Oct, (and cos we don't really celebrate it here in Australia anyway so the date doesn't particularly matter, LOL) I have planned a Halloween Party! I had so much fun designing some Spooky invites! I wanted something black, like a bat or a coffin and decided the former was too hard so stuck with the Coffin. Well, they turned out really well! I didn't need to buy any new supplies either cos they're made just from black and white cardboard, some brads, silver inked edges and I stamped RIP on the front in white brilliance and added the recipients name under that in silver gel pen. Cool!! I loved them and was so pleased when they got great reviews from some of my friends too (others obviously have no concept of cool, handmade invites!)
I made up this spooky little rhyme for the inside in about 5mins while I was at work (who says I never get anything done!!) instead of just writing all the details out (booorrriiinnggg!!) Hope you like it!

Ghosts and Ghouls
Will gather at eight,
To howl and wail
For the life of their mate.
It’s Charlotte’s birthday
Come along, celebrate!
{address},
Is where to congregate,
January 31,
the frightening date.
Dressed as something spooky
Whatever your fate.
Witches, Pumpkins, Zombies,
Don’t be late!

I was so proud of it! Now I just can't wait for the party!

:) C

About me.. more.

And more pages for my "Being Charlotte Kingman" book about me. It's really coming together now and I have some more pics waiting to be scrapped! Only 2 weeks to go til I'm not 26 anymore, so I have to make sure I finish it by then!

Here's my wonderful family! I love these guys, and we have managed to get all together a couple of times this year which has been fantastic! We love getting to hang out together. This page has some of my all time favourite products- the MM artisan journalling piece, Maya Road Owl rub on, Colorbok sticker that says "Pieces of the same cake" {Lol! Heart glowing with pride}, Doodlebug paper frills and the Creative Imaginations lettering stickers that I've had for positively EONS!! I had to construct a 'Y' out of a curly letter 'Z' cos I had run out of Y's- Yvette taught me how to think creatively to make other letters out of Z's and all the unused letters. Thanks Yvette! That is a useful piece of creative info :)

And then here are my friends:

A funny bunch of different nationailites and personalities but a close bunch once we get together. Who would have thought all these different people could be friends! We all became friends at work and the best thing is there are a few couples within the group so we don't have to worry about partners who are "outsiders" and don't fit in. Get what I mean?

I found this really cool black embossed paper in my stash and I know I've had it for at least 4 years! I'm pretty sure I bought it when I worked at the Scrapbook shop (now you know why I have so much stuff from so long ago) and I finally thought- "Stuff it, I'm cutting into it and it's going into the book about me!" I lightly inked up the edges in silver ink so it would highlight the embossed pattern and it shows up pretty well here. I'm glad to have this out from being buried in my stash and actaully used! It's so pretty.

Will and I are off to Newtown for a look around today. Yay! Something interesting for my Project 365! Lol

:) C

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot!

I just got back from a run and man is it hotting up outside! Finally Summer has come to Sydney.. Woo Hoo! Now I get to enjoy it from the inside of an Air Conditioned Lab, at least we have windows in our new lab and are no longer raving mad scientists stuck in a windowless cavern. Lol!

Here's a page I finished the other day... you may have seen a sneaky little pic of it on the Project 365 Mosaic of my first 9 days.

It's another one of the Big Banana from Will and My Road Trip/Beach Holiday back in October. I love the pic on the right where the Banana Split looks GINORMOUS!! YUM! Do you like my journalling spot/ speech bubble? Will says the sweetest things... and I'm sure I remember him saying this, but it doesn't really matter anyway cos I know he was thinking it, and it made for good journalling anyway {wink!} Look Felicity, I used one of the big paper flowers you gave me for Christmas {cheering a blowing on a hooter}!!

Ah Monday, I hope you're all not suffering Monday-itis! Mine used to be alleviated by the fact I knew Monday was my day shift amongst a sea of nights.. happy times.

:) C

And Owl Will Love You.. Owlways...

I hope you now have Bon Jovi stuck in your head too :) {sniggering to self}. Well, today has been an interesting mixture of uneventful and eventful! And I accomplished my goal of taking a non-crafting related pic- you can check it out next time I do my Project 365 mosaic in another 8 days.. There's a tempter for you to come back and check me out! Lol.

After wasting my morning waiting for a potential new housemate that decided at the last minute my place is too far from her work so didn't come, I was wandering around aimless at home cos my whole day had been messed up. I was surfing for some new Baby Stamps when I realised Art Stamps is the Australian distributer for Hero Arts and had all their new stamps in! I jumped in my car and toodled off to their shop (conveniently only 15mins from my house.. woo hoo!) and I relaxed and indulged my stamping senses in looking at all the new Rubber. Delicious! I only got one stamp from the new range (however, family, I saw many sets I wanted there!) but as soon as I saw it I put it in my shopping basket, and that's where it stayed. No, it's not an owl or a baby stamp after all.. it's woodgrain {licking lips, thinking of all the wonderful cards and scrappin I can do with this stamp!} It is actually a big circle of woodgrain and it just fits inside my Giga Scallop punch from Marvy so it's a match made in heaven. Check out the cool cards I made with it when I got home! I stamped it in Chocolate Chip on Kraft, and I think it turned out fabulously! That's the eventful part- upon making it home at 2:30pm, I made 3 cards and am currently baking a dairy free, egg free, nut free cake for Felicity (we'll see how that turns out- it currently smells pretty good though!!)

Check out the paper on this third card... I think it may have been one of the first papers I ever bought. That makes it about 9 years old! Oh my gosh!! Get rid of it!! Why on earth do I still have it! Lol. It's so amazing to think I have had some supplies for that long! Oh yeah, there is a spanner in the works for my New Year's Resolution. I just found 11 more papers I bought in the after Christmas Sales at Spotlight and RJ's in Wollongong. D'oh! This means instead of being 6 papers down with 48 to go, I am actually 5 papers up. Crap on a stick! Oh yeah, the scallop square punch is from Stampin Up's Summer Mini and the Thank You stamp that fits inside it is from a set in the Summer Mini called "Say it with Scallops." Already quite well used by me!

Hope you're doing something interesting for your Saturday night!!

:) C

Project 365

Is anyone doing this? Have you heard about Project 365? If you just got your December issue of CK (like me, on January 7- gotta love the Australian distributers- isn't it called the December issue for a reason? And what's with the new format, I can't sort them by date on the spine, cos there's no spine any more!! GRRR!!) then you might still just have enough time to jump on the band wagon and you wont be too far behind on pictures.

I'm pretty sure I am SO NOT going to last with this one. You're supposed to take a picture a day for a year and make 'em all up into one album- the Kit of the Month from CK. Unfortunately they didn't order enough kits and their order system crashed so there is a big Hoo Haa but anywho... not the point. Taking a pic a day is really hard. Especially when you are me and lead a pretty uninteresting life. Highlighted in the fact that one day this week I took a pic of an Ice Cream Punnet! An Ice Cream Punnet people... not a cute pic of a day at the beach, or a beautiful sunset... Ice Cream. Maybe that will be interesting in 10 years when the packaging changes, but right now... boredom-ville. Here's my first 9 pics to prove that I did take a pic a day (this is for you Yvette). I blurred out my work building sign so you can't stalk me, BTW.

The tree is finally down too. Now I can get around to putting normal things on my new TV unit, not just Christmas stuff. You know what I want- one of those giant Apocathary jars from Freedom. Love them {hearts emitting from head}. They are way cool.

Tomorrow's goal- take an interesting pic and don't resort to a pic of something I scrapped/stamped.

:) C

Some more selfish pages.. (My Book about Me!)

Here are a couple more pages I did at Christmas time for my Book about Me. I love scrappin and stampin while I'm watching TV and we were watching The World's Fastest Indian so I got a lot done. Quite a good movie too if you haven't seen it, I liked it, mostly cos I like to giggle at the NZ accents (ey bro). Lol.

Ah, my room.. what can I say. It looks like this. It always looks like this. Even if I try to clean it up, it looks like this. There is some small black hole/space wrinkle in my room that prevents everything from maintaining stasus, hence it's strewn all over the floor. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, I am the last person in the world over 12 years old with a single bed. Clearly Urban Renewal has not reached my bedroom but I hope to fix that this year!! {Daydreaming about so many plans}. I wish I could paint the room, but I can't so I really really want to get some of those cool Vinyl wall art stuff instead. (Hint hint, family.. birthday in 23 days!!)

And here is my desk and work area. You can see that I keep it in just the same state I keep my bedroom: clean, organised and tidy {snort!}.Thankfully it actually looks a little bit neater than this at the moment! I have been getting lots done lately so I'm surprised it doesn't look more like my bedroom! I am so lucky to have an inlet off the lounge/dining room where my desk and all my supplies are permanently set up. I have no idea what normal people would put in this inlet, but I know it's perfectly sized for all my junk, I mean stuff. {wink!}

I have been enjoying my nights at home (apart from the whole 'missing Willy heaps' thing) getting used to night time TV (good and bad), finding time to scrap, paint my toenails, sit on the veranda and read my latest CK. Not too bad so far!

:) C

Keep it Rollin....

I'm off to a great start this year, I've done 4 pages already! Awesome!! That means also that I'm almost 1/10th down on my New Years Resolution to reduce my papers by 20%! Woo hoo! If I keep on this course I'll be finished my resolution in no time! :) {clapping hands}

The first page is of the MASSIVE Hail stones that pelted down on us at Darlington Park when we were on hols in October. DP is notorious for Hail (we were there in a massive hail storm in 1985 that went through the roofs of the caravans and littered the ground with dead birds!) and of course there was no shelter for the car so we threw every blanket in the cabin over it! Other cars had cracked windscreens and dints but Willy's was fine. Look at my totally unimpressed face! I was amazed by just how many Cricket Ball Size stones there were- it wasn't just 1 or 2, there were dozens!

The second page is from the Oct Long Weekend (yeah, I'm so totally up to date with my scrappin! Whatever!) when Will and I did a late afternoon run to Dee Why for a fish and chip dinner by the sea. Totally delicious. The Calamari Rings at this chip shop are gigantic!! We really should share one box cos there's so much food, but we gorged ourselves and had one each {fatties}. I loved how awesomely blue the sky was this day and I was so happy when it came out that way in the pics too. I love will's Black hair against the blue sky, Black hair is so dramatic! So glad he did something about those creeping sideburns though.. I think he was planning for them to reach his chin! Lol.

:) C

Today is the first day...

... of the rest of your life... Ok, a bit too dramatic, but today I do start my Supervisor-ship at work. Woo hoo, watch out, I'm the boss! Lol. Well, at least I'm training to be the boss. This is a major change around for my life, I've gotta get into a new groove for Scrappin/Stampin time etc. Hmm.. see how we'll go. Maybe it'll turn out better and I'll be churning heaps out!

Further to the book about me, here are a couple of the next pages in the book. You can see the first few here. Ah Willy, what would I do without you? A constant source of amusement with his lack of apparent emotion and his compulsion to talk if there is silence for even a minute, and tell you all his deepest darkest secrets. Sometimes way way way TMI. But I love him, so there you go.

And that is followed by something I don't love: having Diabetes! What a bummer. There are so many things I miss.. at the moment I am really craving a Bounty Chocolate Bar (it must be summer reminding me of it's coconut goodness) and on the hot days I would do anything for a Frozen Coke. Why can't they make Frozen Coke Zero!! Argh!! The Coke Cola company should employ me to come up with wonderful ideas like that, cos it seems they can't do it on their own!

Oops, gotta be at work in 40mins.. should go have a shower i guess {wink!}

:) C

Scraplifting..

Here are the 2 pages I did when I discovered my Mojo yesterday. The first is of the Bakerella Cupcake Pops I made at Yvette's place back in Sep. If you think this page looks familiar it is because I had already done this page on pink and white spotty paper about the same event! LoL! It wasn't planned but it's no biggie either, seeing as they go together in the album so they kinda match. I had all these pics of us making the Cupcake Pops so I thought they deserved a page just as much as eating the Cupcake Pops did! Man were these delicious.

Then I did this page, which is a Scraplift of a page by Jennifer Pebbles, one of my fave scrapbookers. If only she would post more often!! Her page is here. I bought the Mr Campy range by Cosmo Cricket specifically for the pics of our Road Trip/Beach Holiday, and I just love the way JP uses them. So cute! I don't generally Scraplift so closely, but I loved her page :) I hope mine still seems different enough! Will was so funny when he caught this fish.. he kept pointing at it's face and saying "I'm so gonna eat you!". He did! I tried a bit, but maintain my view that fish tastes like shoe.

So.. Happy Days.. I have done 2 pages already for the year! Did you know in 2006 I had a plan to do 52 LO's for the year and i did 36. Wow, so underwhelming. Last year I did 68! What an effort! I was quite pleased with myself. This year I hope to equal or better that number. Especially seeing as I have to use up my stash, as per my New Year's Resolution (to use 20% of my 269 PPs). Well.. so far so good... these 2 LO's used 3 sheets of paper! Woot {blowing a paper hooter} only 51 to go!

:) C

Found it!! (What the? you ask.. see previous post)

The Giraffe's Sleeve was hiding under the crap on my desk. Incidently, my Mojo was there too, so I'll have something to post tomorrow now! Woo Hoo {doing star jumps}.
:) C
P.S. Willy and I have a date tonight, to the Bavarian Bier Cafe.. YUM, schnitzel!!

And the Wheels Fell Off..

They fell off my creativity.. already! {Sigh}. I had plans for today, great plans. And yet I have sat around for hours, surfing the net, playing my Nintendo, I nipped down to the shops but most of the good local browsing ones are shut for the holidays.. alas, I have wasted the day! I have no motivation! Grrr!!

Here are the other cards I made yesterday..

And look! I can make a card without ribbon! What an effort. What I would do without ribbon and my collection of scallop punches, I don't know.

But the very next card was back to ribbon again. lol. The Giraffe is making quite an appearance in my cards at the moment. Probably cos I can't find the plastic sleeve he lives in and so he's wandering around my desk and I can't be bothered taking him off my acrylic block! I just keep using him. Once I clean up the montrosity that is my desk I'm sure I'll find his sleeve. Unless it fell in the bin. Let me go look...

:) C

Off to a Good Start!

Yep, that's right... 2009 is already off to a good start with me finishing 6 cards yesterday! Woo Hoo! I'm feeling the creative juices flowing already!

After Mum's Sale and Alicia taking my cards into her work, I realised my box only had about 4 Baby cards left, so I set out to rectify that. I wanted to start by making a baby shower card that would be for either sex and this cream/green/red combo fits the bill rather nicely I thought! I hope everyone else loves Owls as much as I do! (Could you tell?) I made 2 of these cards, just changing the ribbon for the other one.

The next Baby Boy card uses the gorgeous little Giraffe stamp from Imaginesce that I picked up in the great Scrapbooking Shop at Yamba and Wordsworth sentiment. I love this little Giraffe, he is so so cute, just perfect for baby cards. When I go through my stash of stamps and stuff I realise I really don't have that many that are usable for Baby Cards (I've got lots of tiny ones but nothing bigger to make a focal image from). I just keep using the same ones over and over. Family, if you are looking for something to get me for my birthday, cute Baby stamps or a gift voucher to a stamp site would be gggreeeaaattt!

And the last one for today (I'll post the other 2 later) is another cute Baby Boy card using my Hero Arts pram and the new Stampin Up "Say it with Scallops" stamp and Scallop punch available in the current Summer Mini Catalogue. I love these stamps and the punch, they are awesome! I'm sure you will see that Congrats stamp pop up all over my card-ing!

Back to work today, my Last OT and night shift.. {sob} I'll miss blogging at breakfast, I don't think I'll be able to drag myself out of bed early enough with my new shift!

:) C

Happy New Year!! Bring on 2009!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I hope you managed to get out there and party.. guess what?! We saw the fireworks!! We were sitting around at work (for like 1.5hrs doing nothing) waiting for out last delivery to come (due at 9:30pm, but went AWOL) and we begged and pleaded to be let go.. I think our manager was scared the crew were going to riot (not far off the truth!) and he let us go!! So at 11pm Will and I jumped in the car and raced off to Gladesville to try to see the Fireworks. We drove around for 30mins trying to find a carpark but the place was PACKED!! We eventually did a dodgy park (if you're a Policeman reading this, our park was completely legitimate and within the boundaries of the law) and RRAAANNN to the Burns Bay Bridge and made it with about 2 mins to spare! Even though the Fireworks were a fair way away and we had the Butt view (everything is angled out to the harbour and not the west!) it was still so pretty, heaps of beautiful colours, MASSIVE bursts and the ones that hang in the air for ages... soo beautiful! The greenies musn't have been happy with the smoke though cos by the end it obscured half the fireworks from us and we couldn't see the city any more!!

Here comes some exciting news too... I'm going to make a New Year's Resolution!! WHOA!! I've never made one before so I hope this is one I am going to stick to!!

Drum Roll Please.. {brmmmmmmm}

"I solemnly Resolute to reduce my Patterned Papers and Scrap stash by 20% by the end of 2009"....

WOW!! How Liberating!! I'm serious about this you realise and I've done the figures:

Here's the current number crunching...

Full Sheets of Patterned Papers: 269 (4.15kg on the kitchen scales!)

Scrap Stash: 2.35kg (I'm so not going to count these individually!)

So this means a reduction of 53.8 papers/0.83kg (oh no!) of full sheets and 0.47kg of scraps.

WHAT HAVE I DONE!!! How will I ever use up that many, not including new ones I buy... hmm.. I've got some serious crafting to do!

Have a great Public Holiday! I've got some creative plans for my day!

:) C