WWJW Week 5

Hi y'all!
I'm enjoying some lovely cuddles from Jai right now- I'm so lucky!!
Today Will, Jai & I went to Sizzler for lunch! How long has it been since you had Sizzler's delicious cheesy bread? Yonks? Well I'll tell u a secret- Woolies sell "Pan Bread" in with the garlic breads & it's exactly the same! But I still enjoyed plate fulls of my fave Sizzler Potato skins. Yum! Jai was looking super cute in his outfit too :)



Bodysuit: Osh Kosh B'gosh
Trackies: Kmart
Socks: Baby Gap

He's Doing a little Irish Jig in this pic. He's quite the dancer!!
:) C

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Man O' Man!

It's time for some Manly cards! I have been wanting to get the "Seeing Stars" stamp set from Stampin Up since I saw some funky samples using it on Splitcoast stampers. I knew the set would make cool guy cards (which are always hard to make!) and cos you can get a matching star punch to make it even quicker and easier to make the cards, I was hooked! This set is on the retiring list for the USA catalogue so I imagine it will retire from our catalogue this year too, which sux cos I'm just realising what an awesome set it is and how much fun it is to make cards with! The small stars I still cut out by hand but it's super easy to stamp and punch out the big stars, which makes a real "wow factor" for the cards (can you tell I've been watch "The Block"? They always use the phrase "Wow factor". If I had been watching "Escape to the Country" I'd say "It ticks all the boxes"- thanks for pointing that one our Mum! LOL! Isn't it funny when the hosts get stuck on a particular phrase and always use it!)
So anyway I pulled out my man papers and got to work. I have loved this orange skull paper from Kaisercraft, I think I may be up to the last scraps of it too {frowny}. But I've still got lots of cool manly papers in my stash to use up and I have to keep reminding myself to stop hoarding papers! The brown with green dot paper is "Turf Street" from the Scenic Route collection named after my home town, Grafton, and they even had a paper named after our street (Carr St)! My sister Yvette emailed them to make sure it really was named after our town (cos it's an American brand) and they confirmed it was! How cool is that!!
I was chatting with my sister Alicia, who is a fashion buyer and always is up on the trends and has cool ideas, about themes for man cards and she suggested high rise buildings/city scapes. I immediately remembered this piece of paper I had in my scrapbooking stash with the New York Skyline on it and I paired it up with the Seeing Stars set to create this cool card! I was really pleased with how it turned out, and it doesn't incorporate too many "fussy" details which aren't always a man thing. Yay for Alicia's idea! Thank you!! {hugs}
And then I spied this black star ribbon in my stash and went about incorporating it onto a card using Seeing Stars too. This card is a bit of a Star overload, but really, I like it :) {giggles}
Well, that's it for the man cards, I hope you are having a good week so far!
Oh, and to leave you with a Jaimeson pic, this is a cute Mega close-up I took on my iphone then played around with using the Instagram app. Such a cute little face! LOL! I took this pic at 4am at Mum and Dad's when Jaimeson was full of smiles and A-Goo's! He wanted to play, not sleep!
:) C

So Sweet!

I know I'm biased, but Jaimeson is such a sweetie! I love his chubby cheeks and little chin! He now has looong eyelashes (which used to be always stuck against his eyelid but all of a sudden sprung out!) and has so many facial expressions! He chats away to you with his "A-Goo's" and gives lots and lots of smiles. Especially when he sees Daddy. He had lots of fun at Granny and Papa's this week, though Mum said Dad hogged the cuddles a bit! {giggles} I think Dad enjoyed the excuse of "I'll just rest my eyes while Jaimeson sleeps here against my chest!" LOL!
He has grown so much since this little photo shoot Yvette and I did at Mum and Dad's when he was only 17 days old. I don't think he'd fit in the pomegranate box anymore! Do you like the "ticket" that is stamped with "Lullaby & Goodnight"? It's the back side of a Galaxy World ticket! You know when you play the games at Galaxy World and it spits out the tickets but you always have some left over after redeeming them for some crappy prize (or in my case I once got a Milkshake maker and toasted sandwich maker! Yes, I used to play pretty often!) I keep finding little wads of Galaxy World tickets around in my stuff and they have a plain grey back which is awesome to stamp on! I've made some boy cards with the stamped ticket on them too. Sweet! Using up non-traditional craft stuff from my junk stash, as well as my normal craft stash! The fantastic Woodgrain brown sticky tape I got at Paper Source in Washington DC on our Honeymoon, this is the first time I've used it! I have to remind myself I can't keep things in my stash and not use them cos I think they're "too precious!" {smacking back of hand!} I love the little Jolee's Boutique train on this page too, too cute!
And lastly, a pic of Jaimeson, look at his wide open eyes! Can you believe our little boy is 2 months old now? Whoa!! I love this little "Forest Friends" Romper I found in Target, that Fox is just so cute! I wish they had more Woodland stuff around in the shops here, or I wish I had bought more Woodland stuff at Carters/ Old Navy in Hawaii!
Hope you're having a Happy Weekend!
:) C

Costco is open!!

Hi Y'all!
Well I have been waiting for almost a year for the Costco near us to be finished, and finally, yesterday, it opened! So Willy, Jaimeson (in the Baby Bjorn strapped to Willy!) and I headed off there about 12:30pm today. I knew there had to be some good points to moving back to Hotel d'Lam, and one is that Costco is 5 mins away. Hooray! LOL! I have been waiting for it to open in the hope that I can get some cool American foods that are in my American recipe books, like Monterey Jack cheese and Ghiradelli Semi-sweet Chocolate chips, both of which I saw when we visited the Melbourne Costco on my birthday this year. Well, wouldn't you know it, the choc chips were recalled cos they didn't have that annoying disclaimer on the packet (you know, may contain traces of soy or nut, even if it's never even been near a nut.) and we couldn't find the big block of Monterey Jack cheese either! But I did find a shredded "Mexican cheese" blend which contains Monterey Jack, cheddar and 2 other types of cheese which I've forgotten so I got that instead. But I did find a 1.5kg patty (if you could still call it that!) of Western Star butter! It's only $10!
I know you are probably dying to know what I bought {smirk} (I bet you don't care a smidgen, but sorry cos I'm going to bore you with it!) so here it is (see first pic).
I got *Apple Pie- $15
*Mexican Cheese mix -$8 for 1kg
*CC's Corn Chips- $4 for 500g bag
*Hershey's Chocolate Syrup -$4.50 for 1.4L
*Mocha Frappe Powder Mix - $10 for 1.1kg (I already made a hot choc using it and it was YUMMO!)
* 12 Turkish Bread Rolls- $4.50
I had to stop myself from buying the bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups cos I've still got chocolate left from Hawaii! (yep! {smacking back of hand for not being dedicated to eating chocolate!})
We really didn't buy much (especially compared to most people shopping today, we have about 2% of their total number of products!) cos Costco is only round the corner from our house, we mostly went today (second day open) cos I was excited and hyped up from seeing the building progress every time I visited Spotlight across the road! And now I have a good idea of everything they have for when I'm ready to do a "proper" shop. You did have to be dedicated to visit today cos it took us 45 mins in the checkout line! The parking wasn't bad at all though, and we easily got a park on the basement level at the Costco site.
Here's my rundown:
*Costco is awesome if you are having a party. You can get bulk products that would be great for parties, like a massive box of Party pies or 500g packets of chips ($4 approx) and 3L of Salsa ($8 approx)
*If you have a giant family (or live at Hotel d'Lam) it would be great to get all your branded products for cheap, such as Cold Power laundry powder ($47 for 9kg) or Kleenex toilet rolls. The proprietor of Hotel d'Lam prefers 2 ply cheapo toilet paper (you know, the one where you have to use half the roll at a time to get a decent wad to use) that lands at about 30c per roll, so she can't be convinced 50c a roll is actually cheap.
*They have interesting "special buy" products, like Osh Kosh childrens jumpers for $15, I think they are there to entice you into the store, but you can pick up a pretty good bargain with the clothes and they all looked like decent quality.
*The Bakery products are amazing! I got a bag of 12 Turkish Rolls (which I could eat til the cows come home) for $4.50. Don't fall off your chair, really, $4.50. Bargain. And I ate one for dinner and it was delish. I think we're going to have Turkish Bread pizza's tomorrow night and use the Mexican cheese too. Damn, should have bought that tub of Basil Pesto too ($10 for like, 1kg)! And that Apple Pie looks awesome, especially for $15. {Cue Darryl Kerrigan's voice} You couldn't buy the materials for that.
*Huggies nappies were $60 per double box which worked out to be 31c per nappy for Infant size. It was only 1.3c per nappy cheaper than Woolies at the moment, but as soon as Coles and Woolies stop having Nappies on special I know where I'm going!
*They have interesting hard goods like Outdoor furniture, eskies, canoes!, play equipment, kites, books, DVDs then they also have some office equipment, kitchen stuff like pots, pans, knives etc, Prada Handbags (no really!!) and electrical goods like TVs and Cameras.
*I reckon if you have a big family you could shop at Costco once a month and stock up and save lots. I'd say the prices are as cheap as when the products are on special at Coles and Woolies, so if you only shop the items on special at Coles and Woolies then Costco isn't for you. If you can never wait for the specials at Coles and Woolies then you would love Costco cos they have the "specials" prices all the time! Also, they don't have a broad selection of the one product at Costco so if you like to buy only particular brands then it's not for you either. But if you're like me and are interested to see what they have in hard goods and special items (their book section looked pretty extensive and cheap) and if you like American products (like a box of frozen Mozarella sticks for $15) then you'll love looking in Costco!
And cos you work up such an appetite we stopped at the food kiosk- reminicent of the Ikea food kiosk- and grabbed a giant slice of pizza ($3) and hotdog ($2.50 with a cup of coke and free refils) which went down a treat! Look at little Jai's dummy you can see poking out from under Willy's arm! LOL!
So that's it! I hope you enjoyed my run-down! Feel free to come to Costco with me sometime (you have to be a member to shop).
:) C

WJWW Week 4

Hello from windy, rainy Wollongong! What a good few days to stay inside doing some Christmas in July craft with Mum! We have eaten warmed Fruit Mince Pies for morning tea & there is a cinnamon candle burning so the house smells very festive. It's wonderful!
Jai & I have come down to do some craft, get spoiled with lots of cups of tea, homemade soup & desserts & for Jai to get lots of cuddles!
For "What Jai Wore Wednesday" he is keeping in with the cold, festive mood in a gorgeous Polar Bear bodysuit! Love it :) I usually put his leggings under the bodysuit so u can see all the polar bears (and tiny bird too) but Mum said he looked too much like a girl, or ballerina!, so leggings on the outside it is.
Boy his cheeks & chin look MASSIVE in this pic!



Bodysuit: Carters
Leggings: Bonds
Corduroy Boots: from Yvette!

:)C

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No Paparazzi!!

No Paparazzi please! Lol!
I was trying to take a pic of Jaimeson's gorgeous big smile but he kept wanting to touch my face instead!! What a cutie our boy is!
:) C


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The sunshine

And for a second the clouds parted & the sun shone straight in through the window and onto his beautiful face! What an angel!



:) C
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An Animal in the House

Yep, we've got ourselves a real Walrus! LOL! Jaimeson always puts SO MUCH effort into his yawns and his mouth opens so wide and on an angle, it really makes me laugh! Here he is at a mere 3 weeks old, giving us an awesome animal impression!
I spritzed the plain sage green BG paper with my new Denim Misting spray I got at the Quilt show! I like the effect, though you wouldn't want to be a perfectionist cos I say the spray rather "drips" than "Sprays". But I like the effect none the less, and at least it means you can see it in pictures! How cute is the brown bobble fibre? I got it on a roll for $2 from Spotlight. Bargain! I love the phrases "Roll with it" and "Enjoy the Moment" cos they seem to suit how Jai must be feeling when he gets his whole face in on the yawning action! The animal BG paper I have had for eons too, so happy to use it here! It's so sweet, and I've been hoarding it for a special page. None more special than of our special guy!
:) C
Pic: Special Guy conked out after a feed. A common face of his! Look at those cheeks! And check out all his new hair growing along the hairline on his forehead. So soft and fuzzy!

WJWW Week 3

Here's our little man, chillin' in his rocker. He has not been a happy camper just now. How can he be full after only a 5 minute feed? I don't know, but his ear piercing yells suggest he has a pain in his tummy too, so he's having a little rest with his emergency dummy & has settled down. Poor fella! Maybe its the bad weather ;)
So for this week's "What Jai Wore Wednesday" he is wearing one of my fave striped suits, I just love the colours! And his gorgeous denim MC Hammer pants from Aunty Fliss go so well! And they've even got working pockets which I stuck his hand in & he looked so cute! What a cool dude.

Bodysuit: Target
Pants: Cotton On Kids
Booties: Granny
Dummy: Nuk
Giraffe: Russ

:) C


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Oh Happy Boy!

So you missed me Yvette? Awe, so sweet! Well, as a prize for your enthusiasm toward me, I present you with a Jaimeson page, and it's one with one of my fave pics of him too! Isn't he just so cute! {chest swelling with pride. And a little bias}. This pic reminds me that Jai looks soooo much more Asian in pictures! And how well does the BG paper match Jai's outfit?! Meant to be!
I took him in to work yesterday for the first time and everyone said how gorgeous he is (and I didn't even have to pay them to say that, or threaten their jobs, LOL!) A few people commented that they wanted to eat him (a feeling i have now and then, especially when I see his delicious thighs, or gorgeous chubby cheeks and little chin!) and some wanted to take him home (I didn't let him out of my sight in case someone smuggled him into their locker to take home later!) He also got comments like "He looks so much like Will" and "He looks so much like you" which is interesting seeing as Will and I look nothing alike, and aren't even the same race. But I guess it means Jaimeson has a nice spread of both of our traits! We are soooo proud of our little man and it was so wonderful for all of our work friends to see who was inside the bump they saw every day for 9 months! We did get mobbed though, by everyone from our co-workers, my boss, bosses from other departments, workers from other departments, workers from other floors, the canteen ladies to the cleaners! I guess Will and I are well liked at work {wink} And also, a baby does tend to draw people to you!
:) C
P.S. Family photo for you! Next time anyone sees the 3 of us together can you please take a family photo! Cos otherwise we keep just taking these self-taken pics, and they're not really frame-worthy!

On the train again....

We are all rugged up & on our way into the city to meet up with an old High School friend (Firman, if you're interested who!) it's Coooold this morning again so both Jai and I have many layers on! I love meeting up with old friends so it should be a fun morning. I haven't seen Firman for 2 years, and before that it had been about 4 years! Plus I might get time for a little shop around before I come home again ;) yay!
:) C


Here is my sweet little fellow rugged up in his pram! Such a home boy in his beanie & hoodie!!
Ps- I wrote this at 10am but it wouldn't post, so don't worry, I'm not on the train at 6:30pm!
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WJWW Week 2

Hello!
It's time for another "What Jai Wore Wednesday"! Did you all check out his "Measles Suit" last week? Well, this time it's another cool ensemble, check out my cutie! The funky personalised romper is courtesy of Jaimeson's lovely Aunty Yvette (who instigated us playing WJWW as she is posting along with her friends.) The romper says "Jaimeson. Since 19/05/11." Awesomeness! I had to put him in it on a Wednesday Yvette, so you could see how cool he looks in it! Then I paired it with a Granny knitted cardigan that has the cutest little blue duck buttons, which Will said kinda makes him look like a pansy. That was until I pointed out Will has a knitted jumper exactly the same colour which even has argyle pattern on it, so they who live in glass houses should not throw stones! {high five!} The cute little Moccasin shoes I got at "The Children's Place" in Hawaii when Jai was still Peabody :) Memories... {music playing off in the distance}. We went shopping up at Castle Towers with Granny, Papa, Xander, Felicity, Cooper and Sienna on Wednesday, so this outfit wasn't wasted on me here at home!
:) C

Little boy

Hi Y'all!
Here is my little Jaimeson, the second week he was home! Look at how tiny he was! Oh, memories {sighing off into the distance...} cos he's a big boy now! We had his 6 week check up at the Doctors last week and with a nappy and singlet on he weighed.... 5.5kg! WHOA! My chubba bubba! I think most of that weight is contained in his cheeks :)
Anyway, the page is about how sweet it was to see Jaimeson in blue clothes when he was little! We didn't know if he would be a boy or girl so he didn't have too many tiny blue clothes! Mind you, he's got plenty of clothes now! And I did just buy him a little shirt today that says "Handsome is my middle name" which is ironic, cos one of the meanings of his Chinese name is Handsome!! LOL!
And here is the Little Man himself enjoying life....
:) C

Baby Card Stampage!

I've been on a Stampage! A Stamping Rampage, if you will {smirk} and I've been churning out baby cards like they're going out of style! It must be the inspiration from my gorgeous boy Jaimeson and the desire to use up more of my scrap stash so that I can keep up with my New Years Resolution! {High Five!} I think I've used up at least another 2% of my scraps in just a few days. LOL! It's such a numbers game for me, call me my Father's daughter!
Will's sisters are currently my best card clients, and Lil has been to so many baby showers lately that my baby card stash is quite diminished! There mustn't have been much on tv during the last quarter of last year! Hahahaha {belly laugh!} And I have been inspired to ink up lots of different stamps lately too, and break out some of my Stampin Up stamps that haven't seen ink yet! Like the sweet little stamps on the first 2 cards. I love the Sweet Pea (seeing as Jaimeson was called Peabody) and the Peanut is my second fave. So Cute! Actually, that's the name of this set too... ironic! I love the big pink flowers on this second card too, I got them at the Quilt show a week ago, hooray for breaking open the packet already {patting self on back}.
I think the 2 little Elephants on Stampin Up's "Baby Steps" stamp are just gorgeous! I saw a card on splitcoast where someone had stamped a second tiny elephant behind the Mummy elephant by inking up just the baby with a marker, and they had made a "Twins" card, oh so sweet! So you can see I had the pink swirly embossed card out on my desk, cos I've used it on all the girl cards! LOL! And I went about making duplicate cards again too, but this time I used different stamps or embellishments to make them look a tiny bit different, even if the LO was the same.
Fox and Friends is definitely one of my fave sets for children, I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with the baby sets that are in the current SU catalogue. I really have to stretch my imagination to keep coming up with cute cards using the limited sets! Hopefully in the new catty which is out Sep 1, there will be more to choose from!
And I am currently still working on boy cards, but here are a couple I did yesterday! I had to use a Kaisercraft mini stamp set for this one {wink!} I do love that plane though, its so cute for boys! And the "Little Man" sentiment which I love is from the same set, and sometimes I call Jaimeson that too, so it's even more special to me :) I did a red plane card too, and the sentiment on this one is from a Kaisercraft set also. I found the "So cute" ribbon in my stash, I had totally forgotten about it! I think maybe I should do a NY resolution for ribbons next year! Hahaha! But I LOVE ribbon! Nah, I think I'll just stick with papers, its hard enough to reach that resolution!
And one more boy card, also using Fox and Friends. The whale is soooo cute (ok, obviously today I think everything is soooo cute!) But he really is cute cos he has a tiny heart coming out of his water spout! The whale makes a good boy card I think, and there's my fave sentiment again! The zig zag edge is doing using a Martha Steward punch. I love punches, especially edgers and label shapes, they add a little extra "zing" to my cards!
And for Monday, here is your pic of Jaimeson! I LOVE it when he purses his lips and makes a tiny tiny "O"! This isn't even the smallest O he can make, sometimes its just so tiny that it make me laugh out loud! Its especially amazing seeing as he has a wide smile. How do you go from wide smile to tiny O?! Love it!
:) C

What Jai Wore Wednesday

Ok, so my sister Yvette Is playing along with her friends in a game called "What I Wore Wednesday" where they blog a pic of their Wednesday outfit for a bit of fun. Seeing as I am perennially in either PJ's or trakkies these days I figured it wasn't THAT interesting if I played along, but I can play for Jaimeson! He has some pretty cool outfits!
So here is this week's "What Jai Wore Wednesday" (WJWW).
This outfit I like to call his "Measles suit" and I love that he's doing his best "Saturday Night Fever" impression too ;)

{you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man} lol!!!
:) C
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New Year's Resolution 2011- Recap!

Hi Y'all!
Do you remember I have a New Year's Resolution to reduce my Patterned Paper stash and scrap stash by 20%? And if I buy any papers throughout the year I have to add them to the target too? Well, I thought i would give you a re-cap as to how I am going, seeing as we are half way through the year already! Where has time flown to? {looking off into the distance with hand against forehead}
So using up my Patterned paper stash is going really well! I (shamefully) had over 500 papers at the beginning of the year and I have used up 10%, so for half way through the year that makes me right on target! Unfortunately it's not going as well for my scrap stash! I have only used 2.8% of my total stash, instead of the 10% I should have reached by now. EEEK! {hiding under the table in shame!} I really need to work on that one a bit more. I was pleased I managed to not even look at the papers at the Quilt show the other day! I really don't need any more in my stash!
I did make a bunch of cards yesterday which would have used a few more scraps! Maybe I should just go through them and throw some in the bin! I have a compulsion to keep even the smallest scrap thinking "I can stamp a sentiment on that!" I think I'm a hoarder!
And here is your Friday pic of our little man! It's from a long time ago, when he was still a tiny 3 week old Bub! Oh he is such a cutie! He was even too small for his 0000 clothes and used to wiggle a shoulder out!
:) C
Enjoy your weekend!!