A long time ago... in a land far far away

Will and I are having a long weekend this weekend! Woo hoo! Call it what you will... Mini Break, Mini Vacay etc.. we have rented a house at Nelson Bay with a bunch of friends from work so we're going to spend the weekend lolling in the pool, BBQing, swimming at the beach, watching DVDs, taking walks along the bay foreshore and just chillin and having fun together. You may have heard me talk of my cool friends before, we all met at work, and although we have all moved to different shifts or back to study or left completely, we are still really good friends and hang out together a fair bit. I love that!! There will be 9 of us so it'll be the party house of fun!!

This does mean for you that there wont be any new posts for a couple of days :( try not to cry please, I'll be back Sunday!!

In the mean time I will leave you with this Christmas page I did about all the festive baking I did this year. I had so much fun trying out new recipes and got some that will remain all year favourites (like the almond roca which is so moorish and you can't get enough of- trust me, this is torture when you're diabetic!! But I still love to make it {wink}). I wrapped up little parcels for my friends that included a gingerbread cupcake, tiny Banana loaf and a bunch of almond roca. Oh so good!! The Pumpkin pies I made were totally delicious too :) YUMMMYYYYY!! Will was so happy to clean up all the left over pie for a few days after the Christmas parties! He says "I don't do chocolate" so I'm always on the look out for cool sweets recipes that he will like, and the pie was a winner!! I finally used another one of my cool Christmas bottle caps on this page, how long since you've seen one of those?! Lol!! But I think they are so cool, so I squished one on this page!! It makes all the pages around it in the album really bumpy though. The Christmas "Collection" on the journalling spot is a good way to use up all the little Christmas themed stuff I had hanging around on my desk! I like them all togther :)

See you soon!

:) C

Project 365 Collage #6

Hi! It's Collage #6 time for Project 365!! Are you still interested in seeing what's going on in my everyday life? I hope so, cos I'm still having fun trying to find interesting things every day to take pics of!
This last 9 days... Valentine's Day!! We went to Newtown and had a massive, cheap, delicious dinner!; the Middle Eastern Wedding (they're Henna tattoos BTW, the Bride doesn't have massive permanent tattoos down her arm!!); My fave drink at the moment- Diet lime cordial and Diet tonic water- so refreshing!!; baking again- this time Valentine's Cupcakes (a couple of days late!); card making; Willy and I-cos it's been a while since a self-taken pic made it in the collage!!; wait for it.... A finger in a jar at work!! Yep, that's a real person's real finger... you can stop gagging now.. please! It's always exciting to get a recognisable piece of someone, and especially exciting when you have your camera nearby :); shopping at Woolies to support the Farmers; Date night with Willy to Blue Fish Cafe and then off to the movies to see Ghost Town (funny!) and a late night sweet treat at the Lindt Cafe, what a wonderful night together!!

:) C

Another day of no plans :)

Yep! Another day of just bumming around, how wonderful! Except that I woke up at 7:30am. WHAT??!! Isn't Sunday for sleeping in? I have no idea why I was awake then, especially seeing as I went to bed at 1:30am, but I was, so I got up and made 2 cards. LOL!!

A tiny piece of my happiness did die today, and that was cos I found a 12x12 scrap pad by Die Cuts with a View, called the Green paper stack at BigW today and carried it around for 1/2hr before I decided I had to be true to my New Year's Resolution (NRY) of using up my papers and not buy it. I did consider buying it and then not telling you, but even that is cheating a bit too much by my standards {sigh, chin drops to chest}. Are you proud of me? I hope so, cos I suffered today by doing that. Truly. The papers were so cute and so my style..... Will you despise me if I sneak back in the next few weeks and buy it? I will try not to, but I can't guarentee anything.

So here are 2 pages I finished yesterday and today, thereby bringing me back into the positives for my NYR!! I am now officially 2 papers into my goal of using 54 papers by Dec 31. Hoorah!! Yvette, the animals paper on this page was one of the 6 new ones I bought the other day. It is actually embossed and has some clear glazed bits. So pretty!! I had to have it and the colours were so sweet for this pic of Cooper and Felicity :) I am going to make cards with the left over bits so it will end up paying for itself (it better cos it cost $2.50... RIP OFF!! But I am the sucker who bought it.)

And here is the second page, look how big Cooper is now!! I loved this Sandylion paper when I saw it (in Grafton of all places!) and could imagine some pics of Little Man Cooper on it! I am so happy to have used it now, I needed something other than just baby blue for his pages :) Recognise the green artisan shape bit? I recut around the negative left behind from the journalling spot on Will's Hero page (see previous post), I think it looks pretty cool! There aren't any interesting techniques on this page other than that, but I like it anyway. The paper and the pictures are enough excitment for me!
P.S. Date night was really good last night!! We went to see Ghost Town at the movies, it was really good and I laughed a lot!! We finished up at 11:30pm at the Lindt Cafe at Cockle Bay, delicious!! I just finished off a piece of dark chocolate layered mousse cake that I brought home... so so so so YUM!! Ssshhh... don't tell my pancreas.
:) C

Hooray for Saturday (and a confession about my New Year's Resolution)

My gosh, I was so excited to finish work at 10pm yesterday and realise I had NO PLANS for today or tomorrow except dinner and a movie with Willy tonight. Woo hoo!! This means so much time to just do whatever!! {Happy dancing, head down, arms flailing, legs kicking... WOOT!!}

So.... I slept in til 9am, made eggs on toast in the tiny pink frypan I got off Mum and Dad for my birthday... watched RAGE and sat down at my desk and created.... YAY!!

I actually started this first page when I got home from work last night. It's using more of the Cosmo Cricket Mr Campy range I bought specifically for this holiday.. I love the little car towing the caravan so much!! My family used to tow our caravan around the countryside for holidays.. I have many many fond memories of our caravan holidays! Maybe when we have kids we'll have a caravan too. I think Will wouldn't care, as long as wherever we go he can go fishing! I did have to drive this section between Grafton and Yamba though cos we went the back way through Lawrence and Will hasn't driven on such narrow country roads before! Lol, it was so funny watching him try to put 2 wheels off the edge of the road and miss the guide posts when a car came in the opposite direction! I didn't realise how much subliminal training I must have gotten being a passenger for all those years growing up and driving on those roads!

And then the next page about Willy. This was one of those moments when my heart dropped all the way down to my feet and I felt so genuinely sorry, grateful, apologetic, loved and cared for, all at the same time! Not sure if you can read the journalling so I'll give you a quick summary. Australia Day, out all day, Will dropped me home at 11pm then dropped a friend off at Ashfield and went home. He tried calling me 10 times but I couldn't hear my phone ringing cos it was in my handbag in my bedroom and next thing I know there's a knock at my door and it's Will. He thought something had happened to me, he thought I had been abducted between his car and my front door or that I was in a Diabetic Coma so he had rushed back to my house to make sure I was ok. I felt sooo bad and was so sorry I hadn't heard my phone ring! He wasn't even angry or upset, and he didn't want to come in to the house, he just said "Ok, goodnight. Make your ring tone louder next time". Oh!! I thought "What kind of person would do that for me and drive all the way back to my house to check on me?"! It's not a short trip either. Poor Willy, my hero!

So.. my New Year's Resolution....

I AM TRYING!!!

Really I am... but I am only just holding on!! I accidentally bought 6 more papers (LOL! How do you accidentally buy papers?!) last weekend which means instead of being in the positives with trying to use up my stash I am 1 paper behind. That's right, now I have 1 more paper than when I started this challenge January 1. BUT... that's not too bad really. As long as I don't buy any more for a while, I think it is quite self controlled! I always love papers and forced myself to only buy 6 and only ones that I could think of specific projects for.

As for my scraps... somehow my scrap stash has gone from 2.35kg of scraps to 2.53kg. Hmmm... I think there may be some paper love going on and they are multiplying without my knowledge! I swear I keep using them, and the stash keeps getting bigger! I think the Scrapbooking Fairy is sneaking in at night and planting more scraps in my box!

So... forgive me for not having any positive news about my New Year's Resolution, but it's not all together that negative either! I will try harder!!

:) C

New Rubber see's Ink!

Yay, finally had time tonight to ink up the new Hero Arts stamps I got for my birthday {hugs Fliss!} Well that was after I made Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes and a Banana and Walnut loaf. Somehow when I step into the kitchen I move into some time warp where I create extra baking time outside the normal realm of the clock... I will try to pass on my skills if you're interested!! If I sit down at my desk the time flies past, but in the kitchen I can bake for hours and hardly any time has passed! How does this happen?!

Anyway... this first card is using the Sky's the Limit and Precious Baby set.. sorry for the poor quality pics but it is 11:30pm and the sun aint out anymore!! So I love both these sets. This was the exact card I had in my mind when I chose this set so I'm so happy to see it come to life! The cloud designs are just adorable for baby cards! {Heart!} Love them.

And of course I loved the card so much I made another one, just in a different colour scheme :) You know I love to do that!! I think this card would be great for a baby shower, which is quite a co-incidence seeing as I have a baby shower to go to on Sunday! Genious.

And then I used the Precious Baby set again to make this cutie little card! I love elephants (not quite as much as I love Owls, but they're up there. Maybe if there was an Owl sitting on an Elephant's back I would be in Utopia) and this little guy is squirting out such an adorable little water splash which I coloured with my Spica Atyou glitter pen. Awesome IRL!! I love the gingham elephant body.. Hero Arts gets 5 stars from me with this set!! It's so cool to have new baby stamps seeing as baby cards are the ones I sell the most of and I'm kinda sick of my old supplies!

Another busy week ahead at work for me means this might be the last chance I have to create til Saturday {sigh!} I'm happy with what I did tonight though!

:) C

Project 365 Collage #5.

Hi y'all! Happy Monday to you! I know I know, not the best day to be happy about but I've got a delicious dinner planned, its nice and cool outside so will be awesome for snuggling under a doona on the lounge with Willy watching SYTYCD and Good News Week. Ah... Happy Monday indeed.
So I'm up to Collage #5 of Project 365, Wowsers!! That means this year is flying by way too fast!!

So lets look back at my last 9 days.... Scrappin (love getting time for this!), Cooking up a storm after work for Cooper's first birthday party (46 Mini Cupcakes and a batch of biscuits in less than an hour. Cool!), Cooper's First Birthday Party, Some left over Pizza on my brand new dinnerset off Mum and Dad for my birthday, a work friend's awesome Krispy Kreme birthday cake, new Rubber in the mail... woo hoo!!, sick :( not woo hoo (Hyperacidity in the stomach- ouch!!), I find this awesome decorating mag (where have you been all my life?! So much inspiration!) and finally shopping at Coles for the Bushfire Appeal in Victoria. $107 later, I did my bit :)

Thats it! I'd better go make dinner cos Willy is finishing soon!

:) C

Valentines Hugs to you!!

Happy Valentine's Day!! I hope you all had a great day yesterday and got totally spoilt!! I did :) Will dropped flowers off to my house when I was out shopping and later when he picked me up for dinner he brought me a card and a box of the most delicate, delicious Handmade chocolates from the Real Turkish Delight shop at Auburn. They're all different flavoured Dark chocolates- creme filled, nut filled, praline etc.... so so so so Yum!! Then he took me out to tea in Newtown.. see what I mean... SPOILT!!

I tried booking into my fave Mexican Restaurant at Glebe but they were booked out til 9pm so we decided to just turn up to Newtown and wander til we found a restuarant we liked. It was raining pretty hard but it was nice to be walking together searching the restaurants for something we both felt like eating. We ended up at Grub and Tucker and it was delicious!! We totally recommend it to anyone eating in Newtown. It's modern Australian food and is fantastically priced. I had "Lamb 3 Ways" which was 2 cutlets, a fillet and a Shank on a bed of creamy mashed potato with green beans and basil pesto for $24 (check out the size of it!!). The best bit was the Salt and Peper Sweet Breads on top (like deep fried Salt and Pepper Fat... mmmm...LOL!) It was easily a $35 meal, but was only $24 so Woo Hoo {dancin!!} Will had Crispy Skin Pork Belly served with a tiger prawn, scallop and bacon salad- $22. Wow, he cleaned up his plate good!! Then started on mine too {wink!} We tried to go to the Guylian Cafe at the Rocks for dessert but after we got stuck in traffic at the north end of the City we abandoned ship and had a Maccas Sundae on the way home. Lol! It was a great night!

We've got a Wedding today for one of our work friends. It's a Middle Eastern affair, so will be interesting for a Chinese boy who's only been to 2 other weddings and an Aussie girl not used to eating Kebabs and Rice!!

:) C

I'm much better, thank you!

Hey y'all. I'm feeling heaps better now, woot {doing a toyota jump}. The hyperacidity in my stomach has dissipated and I no longer feel as though I have a large fire brick located just under my ribs. Hurrah!

Time to post the other page I did on the weekend and hadn't posted yet :)

I always giggle at those pics where it looks as though you're holding a building or people way off in the distance, and when we were in Yamba in Oct I realised we could take one with the Yamba Lighthouse! It was so so so funny :) Well I laughed anyway. Hurrah for using through my way old Heidi Swapp Chipboard letters. You know the ones, the ones that say self adhesive but couldn't stick to anything to save their lives and never have. Lol! I modified an X for the Y, the M is actually a W and I ran out of A's so used the empty space left behind from the A :) Happy days!! Look at my cool new Nestabilities journalling block too :) Love {hearts floating around body!!} them! Maybe I might dig in my supplies and add a few little embellishments here and there on this one though, maybe it's a little devoid of embellishments. What do you think?

What are your plans for Valentine's Day? I don't think Will even remembered it was V Day til I asked what he wanted to do for dinner on Saturday night and he was like "What's Saturday night?"!! Hmm... I wonder if this will affect my chances of getting a present? Lol!! He has taken to not giving me birthday/Christmas/anniversary cards either but writes a whole long story on the back of a photo! How sweet is that?! (Also, it means if he forgot to buy a card he usually has a pic of us hanging around his place so he's set!!) Ingenious!

:) C

P.S DON'T FORGET TO SHOP AT COLES TODAY- THEY ARE DONATING ALL THEIR PROFITS TO THE VICTORIAN BUSHFIRE APPEAL.... GO GET SOME GROCERIES PEOPLE!!

Home Sick Today...

Yeah, I was off work today :( Stupid stomach bug or an unknown gremlin who was pulling out the lining of my stomach with it's sharp fingers.. not sure which one it was, but I was not happy.

It's the most annoying thing to be off work and sick, cos here I am at home with my desk of delightful, luscious goodies just waiting to be picked up and played with.. and here I was with no energy and no inspiration! I spent 5hrs on the net researching craft shops in Tokyo for our trip in May (not a complete waste of a day then!) Then at 5pm Yvette lovingly sent me some inspiration vibes via email {high five} and I sat down at my desk and made this page in about 40mins!

I bought this Pink Paislee paper from 2 peas back in August when our Aussie Dollar was worth a mint (wasn't it like $4000 US dollars or something like that {chuckle}), I am so glad I made a $120 order back then!!), but I realised it's kinda hard to use paper with a giant print already on it! I had a fun and challenging time getting the pic to work with the paper but in the end I am quite happy with how it turned out! It's such a gorgeous pic of Cooper watching the TV, he didn't even flinch when I sat down beside him cos he was so engrossed! I used my new Long Curvy Rectangle nestabilitie for the journal spot (I had a lot to write!) and man the owl on the paper is just super cute! I am 12 papers down in my New Year's Resolution too (although in the corrected goal, after finding some extra papers I had bought, I am really only 1 paper down. D'oh!)

Thanks Yvette for the inspiration, I hope you like the finished product!

:) C

Happy Birthday Cooper!!

Happy Birthday Little Man!! I can't believe he is one already, how time flies!! Yet, I can't imagine Fliss and Matt without him now. He's such a cutie!!

We had a party on Saturday, there were so many babies and little kids there it was like a Daycare Centre!! Honestly, there were 55 people, of which 20 were children, just amazing. I caught Willy sweating outside in the 40ºC heat cos he was overwhelmed by the amount of children inside in the air-con! Doesn't C look like such a little man in this outfit {heart melting!}, Will and I got him the tiny Vans shoes when we were in Hawaii last year, they are gorgeous! I love his button up shirt and little jeans... he has the most gorgeous clothes!!

I cooked up a storm on Friday night after work.. I finished at 10pm, went straight to Woolies to buy supplies, came home and made 46 Mini Cupcakes and a batch of face biscuits then made a CD of Cooper pics to play on the TV at his party. I was so tired when I finally got to bed at 2am but it was worth it cos the Cupcakes were a big hit and it was so cute to see all the pics of him growing up over the last year! I didn't come home with any cupcakes which was a bit of a bummer cos they were totally delicious. I find cupcakes in this size (and I mean they are MINI- you can hold them with 2 fingers) are so fluffy, just like tiny little clouds! Yum!!!

One last pic here of the little man and me... Happy Birthday Cooper, you have brought so much love and joy to our lives over the last year!

:)

Aunty Charlotte and Uncle Willy

Relaxation Day... Oh Yeah!!

Boy was I so happy to finally have some time at home today for a "Relaxation Day!!" Church was on early today so we could watch a satellite link of the Archbishop speaking (who would have though Church would get so technologically advanced?!) then I was free the WHOLE day til 6pm when I had a friend's dinner. Seeing as it was gonna be another stinker of a day I changed into tiny shorts and a singlet top and prepared for a fun fun day!!

I put on my "Band of Brothers" DVDs, which I just LOVE, that Willy gave me for my birthday. Am I the only chick who scrapbooks to war movies? Probably. The last time I scrapped "The Guns of Navverone" was on, which I quite enjoyed also! I finished 2 pages that I was so pleased with and just chilled out the whole day. Happy happy happy me.

This first page I'm posting was the one I did yesterday (see, I promised I would post it!) I don't do Christmas pages very often. Don't get me wrong-I LOVE Christmas- I have HEAPS of Christmas papers and decorations and yet I don't remember the last time I did a Christmas page! I think everything gets over Christmassed for me. You know, there are so many busy decorations in the pics or the colours are all wrong for my papers, or I hate my Christmas papers (the usual excuses!) Well this year I broke the mold by making this page yesterday!! I love these papers and they went so well with Christmas! Finally, it looks as though there was a Christmas once in my life!! Lol.. I promise I will try to make more Christmas LO's this year. Ok, well I'll try to make another one at least. Heheh, good enough promise.

The second page is from our Road Trip/Beach Holiday in Oct. I found it rather weird to eat Pippi's at a Chinese Restaurant- I mean, these were things we used to dig up on holidays! I didn't know they were worth so much ($60/kg FYI!) I told the story of always digging them up at Darlington Park and the next week when we were on hols there Willy was so happy to find one! He had held it for ages and I was like "It's probably still alive you know" so we put it in the shallows and after about a minute the slimy "tongue" appeared, it upended and dug straight down into the sand really fast!! Will was totally amazed! We dug it straight back up again (nothing like torturing a Pippi!) and I video-ed it digging back down again on my camera. So cute!! I asked if he wanted to eat it but he wasn't interested after seeing it in it's natural habitat. I think he understood why they tasted so gritty when it sucked in the sea water and squirted it out it's top end!! No Pippi was harmed in the making of this page (we left it alone after digging it up twice!)

The other page from today I'll leave for another post (it's another big week at work and I want to be able to post something during the week!)

:) C

Project 365 Collage #4.

Cheering.. I'm still going with this!! We are 38 days in and I am still taking pics, so happy days {smiles}. So here is collage #4 for my Project 365. It has been a jam packed busy week and a bit, cos of my birthday and all the OT at work.

Some noteable things this week are: Coopers tiny little sandles next to Mummy and Daddy's at the front door {hearts emitting from chest- this is sooo cute!!}, my nesties arriving, making Yvette's famous Mississippi Mud Cake for my birthday {smacking lips together- delicious!!}, my Halloween Party, Family birthday lunch at Balmain (I totally recommend Bar Contessa- beautiful food, great prices and they let us sit/eat/chat for 2 hours no probs), birthday presents (it was a tradition in our family when we were young to lay your presents all out on your bed and be photographed with them- I have modified tradition to be the presents only and I've used these pics a lot to go back and see when I got something or just to reminisce), my inflamed tonsil- what the hell gave me one inflamed bacterial tonsil?!! I manually evacuated it tho (think cue tip and a lot of prodding) and didn't end up with a sore throat so yay me and my disgusting anatomy fascinations!, birthday flowers from Willy still going strong and making Mini Cupcakes for Cooper's 1st birthday party (Yep, the little man is ONE!!). Wow, what a busy 9 days!!

Now you know whats been going on and why I haven't created much recently! I did manage to sit down and eek out a page this arvo so I hope to post it and some other creations I hope to make tomorrow!

:) C

Back to some creating!

Wow, it has been a super busy last 2 weeks, with the lead up to my birthday and all the cooking and planning needed for that, and now one of the busiest weeks in forever at work means I'm back to working long hours again this week. Sorry that I haven't posted anything creative for a while! I did make a bunch of Valentine's Cards on my birthday morning- I woke up real early and was making cards waiting for people to call me.. quite a nice birthday morning really!- but wouldn't you know it, I totally forgot to take pics of them and now my Card Box is at Alicia's work! Bummer!

I did manage to belt out this page when I got home from work last night at 10:30pm though!! I love this gorgeous Sandylion paper- now that's a company that has been around for Donkey's Years! But I did only buy this paper last Oct, so it's not one I've been hanging on to since Dinsosaurs walked the earth! Thank goodness. Isn't Cooper just sooooo sweet! He's totally conked out here on Felicity's shoulder cos he was teething and having a hard time of it. I loved that he was just calmly sitting on Felicity's lap when he spontaneously broke out in a massive frowny and cried! Everyone was like "Ooohh!! Poor little Cooper!!", you just knew he was in pain and he was trying to be a good boy but couldn't hold it in any longer!! Such a cutie. I love his little rubber band wrists too {giggles}.

:) C

My Halloween Birthday Party Wash Up :)

Wow!! My birthday was AWESOME!! I had so much fun at my Halloween Themed Birthday Party, there were so many great costumes and so many people there! I don't think I've had such a big birthday party before!! I got lots of comments like "Wow, you went all out" and "You put so much effort in" and "Do you own all this stuff?!" so that made it all worthwhile. I spent about 2.5hrs saturday afternoon putting up all the decorations in about 35ºC heat {hugs to Alicia for lending me all her cool Halloween stuff!} It was rewarding to put in so much effort and have people really enjoy it and appreciate it!!

I had heaps of fun dressing up as a Gypsy Fortune Teller complete with Crystal Ball and fortunes downloaded from the net {chuckle}. I gave out a fortune and a lucky Gypsy Coin (gold chocolate coin) to all my guests. One of the nerdiest things was to have people ask where I got my outfit and me having to tell them that I own all the stuff (including the Dirndl top which I bought when I was on exchange in Germany- this is it's 4th fancy dress appearance!)!! It was fun to go through all my jewellry and pick out a whole bunch of stuff to wear all at once. And I had about 10 people tell me I should dye my hair black cos the wig suited me {shaking head and making "eek!" face}. Will looked awesome in his rubber mask and "blood-stained" shirt complete with attached eyeballs! Will made me a cool CD to play at the party full of Halloween themed songs like Thriller, the Monster Mash, The Devil's Party by INXS, Silverchair's Cemetary etc. It was fun to hear all the "Scary
themed songs!

Here I am with my crazy-haired Witch Sisters! Does that make us Wicked Sista's? Lol. I love the little Pumpkin outfit Felicity made for Cooper too, so gorgeous! We missed you Yvette, wish you could have been here too!

There were so many other awesome outfits like Con who had a bloody shovel and was handcuffed to the remains of an arm!!, a Catholic priest was on hand to perform any exorcisms needed (he brought his own Little Devil in case there was no other mischief afoot!), the whole Addam's Family!!, 2 Scream Grim Reapers, a Black Cat, an angel (to even up all the Spookiness!) little witches, a few scary monsters, a skeleton (one of my friends is skinny enough to pull this one off really well!), a cockroach etc etc... this list is endless!!

(Sorry I can't seem to get it so you can click on the collage pic below... you'll have to squint and use your imagination!!)

It was an awesome party, I had so so so so much fun! I am so tired now though :) but it was all worth it!

Thanks everyone for coming, and for all my wonderful birthday presents! It was fantastic!

:) C