Happy Mail!

Hi y'all!
Don't you just love getting Happy Mail? You know- where you open the mailbox and you can see a decorated coloured envelope with a handwritten address & you just KNOW that can't be a bill! Yeah I love it too! So I was monumentally excited when there was some Happy Mail for me last week!
It was a gorgeous envelope decorated with washi tape & stickers & inside it contained a gorgeous handmade crochet mug cosy wrapped in a piece of map paper! How do you like my sweet little bird? Isn't he gorgeous!
Thank you so much Yvette, I just LOVE him! {big hugs!} You are so talented! I'm so glad you learned how to crochet!
:) C

My Gorgeous Boy

Hey y'all!
Have I shared this page yet? I don't think so... Sorry if I have already!
Oh how I love instagram. Do you have an iphone? You should get the app if you don't. Its lots of fun to smart-up your pics with cool filters & you can "follow" your friends and see their pic feed too.
I {heart} scrapping with the little square pics too!
Fun stuff on this page: the check background paper is actually vintage printed crepe paper I got at Vinnies in Canberra with Yvette! It was fun to use cos the texture is quite different to normal paper; I like the cute giraffe sticker- Will's bro recently went to Singapore & he asked what I wanted so I said "Boy stickers" (they have great stationary in Asia) and he brought me back these! So cute! And I put the date inside a little speech bubble coming from the giraffe's mouth {love it!}. And there is my favourite thing at the moment- printed tape. The car one is awesome for boy pages! And I love the placement of the title, I never put it up there in the "white space" so I was pretty proud of myself for that. {cheeks reddening with pride}. LOL!
Done any scrappin lately?
Happy Monday!
:) C

Happy Mail!

Oh I love getting Happy Mail!! I do love sending it too {wink} but receiving it is awesome, especially when it's unexpected! Like yesterday when I saw Alicia & she had this Happy Mail for me from Yvette!! Thank you Yvette!!
It was so beautifully wrapped {swoon} and contained a washi tape duo- orange stripe (I've been after an orange washi!) and teal triangles, which are gorgeous! And the Lego Bagpiper Minifigure, which I've been after! isn't he just so cute!!
Thank you Yvette! I loved getting your Happy Mail! {hugs}
:) C

Vintaging from Canberra

Hi y'all!
Yvette, you asked me to post the Op Shop stuff I got with you in Canberra, so here it is!!

From back left:
*A woodland Pyrex plate $2, to match a cup I have in the same pattern! YAY! New tea time set!!,
*Square aluminium cake pan $3- cos Mum always made her Chocolate Raisin Cake recipe in a square pan, and whenever I made the cake I only had round pans so I would always cut the edges off the cake to make it a square before I cut it up! How funny is that! So now I will just be able to bake it in the proper square pan {score!}
*Fisher Price Peek-A-Blocks- $5 for a bag of 11 (couldn't find the rest for the pic! LOL!) Jaimeson just LOVES these blocks, and loves to shake the noisy ones! I love all the little things inside them, and i have been scouring other Op Shops for more (with great success!) They don't sell these any more in the shops so I was so pleased to find them in Op Shops!
*Pencil stool- $4. For Jaimeson! I loved it!
*Books- $1 each. I have been scouring the books at Op Shops, for Jaimeson. We've bought quite a lot and now I'm about to return some that weren't interesting! LOL! I don't really get time to read them while I'm at the shop, and if I get home and decide the story is crap, back it goes to the Op Shop. Consider it my money donated to charity (cos they get the book back- lol!)
*1991 Map of Sydney- $1. This is so fun to look at, and see how much has changed in 21 years! It's a lot too!! No M2, M5 east, M7 etc! Not sure what I'm going to do with it, whether I will cut it up or not.
*Vintage sheets- $5 for 2.

Not a bad haul! I loved Opping with you too, Yvette!!
:) C

Happy Birthday Tassy!

Yesterday was my niece Tassy's 10th Birthday!! Wow! I remember hearing she was born just before I headed off to UNi for the day & I was so excited to tell my friends! I even remember where my first class for the day was (Carslaw building, if you're playing along at home!) I can't believe that was 10 years ago. Now she's in double digits!
Tassy chose a Video Game theme for her party so I made her this Pacman card. Cos he's gotta be the coolest video game character ever {wink!} Him and Mario & Luigi equally, maybe. Do you have a favourite?
Happy Birthday Tassy! I hope you had a fabulous day!!
:) C

Scrap pages from Yvettes

Good Evening all!
I hope you're having a lovely Friday night! And hope that it's a bit more entertaining than mine! The bummer of Will working nights and me no longer working nights {sigh!} It means a lot of crappy TV for me! But tonight I have snuck back into our room while Jaimeson sleeps and I'm typing really really quietly {sitting hunched over the keyboard, like a spy}, so I can post some pages up for you!. And to kill the boredom of regular TV. I am so spoilt by my TiVo, I hate watching TV with ads, it kills me! But Jaimeson hasn't been sleeping so soundly & I've been banished to the rumpas area to watch TV. And it doesn't even have a digital top box so I'm stuck with channels 2, 7, 9 & 10. ARGH! {smacking hands on sides of head}.
Anyway....

 Here are 2 pages I managed to do while staying at my awesomely talented sister Yvette's house at the beginning of the month. I would have loved to do more, but we had to leave a day early cos Jai was sick and didn't sleep much overnight. In fact, he was in the cough, choke, cry cycle; it was horrible.
But at least I did 2 pages, right! Yeah {fist pumping the air}

I love Instagram. Do you have it on your iphone? Yeah, me too. You love it too? {high five!} It's a fun little photo program where you can put different filters to your pics and they are cropped square, so they look uber cool. When I was getting pics printed for scrapping, I went mad and put 6 little Instagram pics to a "normal" photo size and got a whole bunch printed. They were so much fun to scrap with too!
For the first page I was inspired by this layout on Pinterest. Granted, my finished product doesn't look much like that one, but it was inspired by it! I do like how it turned out! And it was fun choosing little squares of paper to put between the pics. I had way more pics to use, but I didn't want it to be too crowded, so I just chose some fave's of Jaimeson. Little cutie!
Then this second page came out of the fact that I've wanted to use that woodgrain background paper for ages but all my normal sized pics cover too much of it. Yvette handed me some of the green spotty tissue paper, I laid it down on the woodgrain, with the 4 small pics and it all came together in the blink of an eye! Yay me!
Oops, just woke Jaimeson, better go!
:) C

My Vintage finds from Goulburn

Hi y'all!


I was bummed to have to leave Yvette's a day early, due to Jaimeson having a bad flu and not sleeping well {silent tear rolling down cheek}. But at least it meant I could justify having a slow and easy drive home to Sydney, including a stop off in Goulburn to "give Jaimeson a break from the car" {cough!} And to let me have a look in the Op Shops. {hooray!}

The Salvos was pretty good, and I got the Mushroom Pyrex dish ( how cute are those mushies!!) and the blue dish in the foreground. I'm pretty sure the blue dish is actually a lid, it's exactly the same shape as a clear lid I have for one of my "flame" pattern casserole dishes. Unfortunately I don't have a casserole in the blue to suit this lid! I reckon you could still use it as a pie dish though. The weird thing was that none of the cookware had prices on them and they said "priced at counter". Does that mean if they like the look of you they give you a better price than if you were mean and looked like you had more dosh? I wonder!! They charged me about $3 for each dish, so I must have looked ok {wink!}

I also got this cool game called "Concentration" which, through my extensive googling (about 5 seconds worth) was first released in 1958. And looking at the cool pics on the tiles in this game, and the face that it's a Second Edition (and they seem to be up over the 20th Edition now!) I think this one must have been released in the late 1950'a early 1960's. It's soooo cool! Not sure what I'm going to do with it. It does have instructions, so I'll have to have a go at actually playing it!

Then I toddled over to find the Vinnies in Goulburn, only to find it's only opened on Thursdays and Fridays (weird!), but right next door was "Tony's Handyman Centre, New and Used Furniture" which was a Treasure Trove! I really recommend you visit. The prices were soooo reasonable, I got the spotty Pyrex glass for $1 and the Aqua Pyrex Pie Dish with fluted edge for $3. So Op Shop prices!! {Score!} He had heaps of cool retro stuff, the place was choc full, but a bit dark cos it's in a big warehouse with not many windows, I could have really used a torch!
Oh, the vintage sheet in the background I got Op Shopping with Yvette, I'm hoping to get Mum to make it into a sweet dress! Can you do that for me Mum?!
There was also a Red Cross Op Shop in town but my parking was up so it was time to go. So next time you're travelling from Sydney to Canberra, stop in at Goulburn, it was great!
:) C
P.S: I'm linking up to Her Library Adventures Flea Market Finds. Have a squiz at everyone's cool finds this week!

An Etsy Store you gotta visit!

Hi y'all!
My sister Yvette has just opened her new Etsy store called "Write*Type*Vintage", selling lots of cool necklaces made from Typewriter keys & Vintage Maps & Dictionaries. I have one of her beautiful Typewriter Key necklaces and I just love it! I am totally in love with those map necklaces too. Especially cos she made one with our home town on it!

Her gorgeous necklaces would make a great gift for Mother's Day too! And cos she's in Australia, shipping will be quick and you can have it by next Sunday! And her packaging is sooooo pretty, I would love to receive something so beautiful for Mother's Day!
Go check her Etsy store out! You'll love her beautiful things! And I'm not just saying that cos she's my sister {wink!} it's cos they really are!
:) C

Wjww

Hi y'all!
I've just had 2 lovely days visiting my sister Yvette in Canberra. We had such fun chatting, op shopping & scrapping together! Unfortunately I had to leave a day earlier than planned cos Jaimeson is sick with a flu & we had the worst night sleep ever last night. It took him 2 hours to get back to sleep after waking up coughing and we tried EVErYtHing!! And I say "we" cos Yvette got up to try to help me settle him too. Poor bubba! You can hear his voice is all hoarse from coughing {frowny face}. He is still such a happy boy during the day tho, despite the runny nose & productive cough. I wish there was a way to make babies blow their noses!
Anyway, here he is yesterday, dressed for Op Shopping & looking very spunky!
Yvette chose his outfit! Great choices Yvette :)

Bodysuit: Carters
Jeans: J&J kids wear in NZ
Jumper: Bonds
Shoes: Converse from Hawaii

:) C

Happy Birthday to my Inspiration!

Happy Happy Birthday to one of the two big Crafty Inspirations in my life! It's not Martha Stewart, it's not Tonia Toddman (heaven forbid!) and it's not even Elizabeth Kartchner. And seeing as it's not Mum's birthday, this is for you.... {guessed yet?}
You provide me with soooo much inspiration, enthusiasm, encouragement and applause! You make me want to be a better crafter. {giggles!} No really! You are so inspiring to me! Whenever I look through your albums, or admire sewing projects you have done, or sit down to read and enjoy your blog posts, I am always blessed with renewed enthusiasm to get into my studio and craft craft craft!! I wouldn't be half the scrapbooker I am now without your enthusiasm and encouragement. I might have introduced you to scrapbooking, but you have left me in your dust!
I love our emailing of ideas back and forwards, the way we can high five each other via the internet, even though we're 300km apart. I wish you lived closer so we could Op Shop together more often!
I hope you are having a wonderful Birthday! I love you!
Happy Happy Birthday to my Big Sister Yvette!

You should head on over to Look What I Made and give her a big birthday hug!
:) C
P.s. anther gratuitous use of a Wedding pic. LOL!

Project 365 Collages 5 & 6

Hi Y'all!
Hey look, I'm at home and sitting at the computer, what a rare treat! Well, that's not entirely true. I have been on the computer a fair bit lately, but it's all been to book our NZ trip for March. Hooray {party hooters going off}! We got our airfares through the Travel Agent last Friday and I've spent the weekend and this week researching and booking all our accommodation. I'm looking forward to it! Tho, lets be honest here, my bid was in to go to Disneyland again. But Will and his sensible mind wanted to go somewhere that would be easy to take Jaimeson (ie. at 10 months he's not really going to enjoy Space Mountain as much as me) and that we could enjoy as a family, and Will has wanted to go to NZ for a while so I gave in and we're off to NZ for 2 weeks on March 10. I have been to the South Island back in 2005, but never the North Island and we're doing both on a whirlwind family driving adventure. And secretly, I am looking forward to it, a lot! I've marked out all the Kiwi Op Shops and everything {giggles!}
So here was the recent Project 365 Pics:17: My sister Yvette and niece Tassy visited Sydney and I was lucky to get some time to pick them up before their bus left, and visit some shops in the City, including Vinnies at Newtown, Made590 and Mitchell Road Antiques. It was almost as if she lived in Sydney and we had just popped out for the day. So much fun! I wish you did live nearby Yvette! {hugs!}
18:Jaimeson and I headed over to my sister Felicity's house for a card making day, as both Felicity's children were at Preschool (Sienna's first days at Preschool ever, so it was a big thing!) Jai slept for almost 3 hours so we got heaps of cards made. {High five!}
19: Another sociable occasion for us, Jaimeson and I met up with our friends Meleah and Claire at a local shopping centre for a coffee. Meleah and I are both whities, but our husbands are not, so it was so humorous for us to have people look at our half Asian, and half Sri Lankan, children then look at us with a surprised face. LOL!
20: flights to NZ are booked!
21: Just a lazy Saturday at home for Jaimeson and I, hanging out watching TV! We needed it after our very busy and sociable week! Phew! {wiping hand across forehead}
22: it's Council Cleanup time so Willy and I dived headfirst into cleaning out the shed! Do you have Council Cleanup in your neighbourhood? It's the BEST thing ever! I love getting rid of crap and seeing what crap of mine people pick up! It's highly amusing people watching at Council Cleanup time! And we've gotten some awesome things at cleanup time! (lounge, futon, single chair, bedside table, big toy sand truck for Jai, outdoor chairs etc etc!) My MIL is a hoarder of chairs and plastic bags, so we liberated her of some {wink!}
23: I was out doing the grocery shopping when my old High School friend Monique texted to say she was in Sydney for the day so could we meet up. (Nothing like a last minute text!) So I quickly rushed home, threw the cold groceries in the fridge, fed Jai and jumped on a train into the city. Luckily Jai is so easy going and just goes with the flow. What a good boy! It was so lovely to see her!
24: Felicity and I had an Op Shopping Day today and here she is with her bounty! She really wanted to go check out the Op Shops after all of Yvette's and my success getting some gems! We visited 4 shops and also had Pancakes at the Rocks (Northmead) for lunch. YUMMO! We had some success and she came away happy with what she got (me too!) and it was a lovely day to hang out together. I haven't driven her around for years so it was nice even just to chat while we drove around! LOL! {hugs}.
So that's my days! Better get back to booking {sigh!}
:) C

Happy First Christmas Jaimeson!

Hi y'all!
Well we had a lovely Christmas at Mum and Dad's, and Jai had a fantastic First Christmas! What a happy little camper he is!
He enjoyed Swinging and blowing Raspberries with Papa...

... and relaxing and enjoying the sunshine with Granny.
He got lots of cuddles from Aunty Yvette...
..and ate some delicious present wrapping paper and ribbon with Daddy!
We ate an awesome baked lunch made by Granny and Papa (and eaten on the special plates with the special cutlery!) It was delicious!

We sat around the table having lovely conversation (and smiling fakely, thanks Willy!)
And we loved every minute of our first Family Christmas with Jaimeson! I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours was!!
:) C

Pages from our visit with Yvette

Hello!
Happy Friday! Yay! {TGIF music blaring in the background!} I still look forward to the weekend, even though I'm on Maternity Leave! It means Willy is home for dinner tomorrow night, and we've got all day Sunday to hang out. And what a special day Sunday will be for Willy, it's his first Father's Day! {high five!} I have been asking him all week what he would like to do, but seeing has he's been sick (with Influenza, the real one too, not just "flu") his brain has stopped working and he can't think of anything to do. LOL! Does anyone have any suggestions??
So I wanted to share a couple of pages that I finished at Yvette's! She is very encouraging and inspirational! I feel like I am always doing the same looking layout, only with different papers and embellishments, and she helped me to get inspired to use some different things (like the little strip of hession under the heart sticker on this first page) and to position the page elements a little differently. As well as telling me it didn't matter if I did the same LO all the time, cos that must be my "style"! I was pretty happy with that point of view. Sometimes I over analyse.... I'm not unhappy with my usual layouts so maybe I should just accept that that's my style and move on {building a bridge... and getting over it}. Look at my sweet little boy with his hand up to the camera saying hello! Too cute!
I've been waiting for the right pic to go with this super cute bird paper for ages! I didn't want to cover up too many of the sweet little birdies :) I think this pic does it justice, and then some. Hello Jaimeson! Oh, and see that yellow letter lace paper? That was the very last of the sheet! High five for finishing a packet {slap!} That rarely happens around here, but I'm proud to say it is happening more and more! Hooray {party hooters going off!} The book paper was a page from Little House on the Prairie (or Dunny In The Paddock as Dad used to call it! LOL!) that Yvette gave me. She gave me lots of cool non-traditional papers to use on my LOs and encouraged me to buy some vintage books to use too! Keep your eyes peeled for more book paper (oh, and see my old fave Japanese book paper on the first LO! I'm so glad I bought that book in Japan, it was only ¥100. Hahah! One Hundred Yen (like $1.40!)
Have a Happy Friday Night! Can't wait for 8pm, that's traditional Chips and Coke time in our family... wish I was hanging with my family tonight!
:) C

Our visit to Canberra

Hello!
Well Jaimeson and I had a fantastic time in Canberra! Here are a few pics taken on my iphone, I'm so happy its always with me! Yvette has more pics on her blog if you're interesting in seeing what else we got up to!
We had morning tea at Silo in Kingston, which one of the guys at work is always banging on about, so it was cool to check it out! We shared a Orange Brulee tart and a Passionfruit Mascapone tart.... {Salivating} They were delicious! I do love a good eggy tart, so the Brulee one was probably my fave. Check out Silo if you're in the area. (It also reminded me of St Malo Bakery at Crows Nest which we went to for Alicia's birthday last year. Check it out too for a world of YUM!)
We went to Costco, which was fun to see what other people are interested in! I mean, how often do you go grocery shopping with someone else? Never? Yep! Yvette got things I hadn't bought there before but might buy e.g. An industrial sized bottle of Cinnamon (which I got when I went back today, I may be slightly enjoying Costco!!) and slivered almonds for really cheap. I think she enjoyed pushing Jaimeson around in his pram while I pushed the trolley too {smiles}.
We did some scrappin (which I'll share in another post, once I take pics of them!) and Yvette scrapped a page of Jai for me to take home too. So cool! I love having Yvette-made pages in my album, cos they are uber awesome. She's got fantastic style {truth!} She's such an inspiration for me :) And looking at her albums was a great way to kick me out of always doing the same looking layout!
We talked about vintage shopping, got inspired and bid on some things on ebay and etsy! And now we're waiting for them to come in the mail, hooray!! {high five!}
We walked Tassy to and from school a couple of times and hung out at home eating delicious homecooked food & choc chip cookies!
Tassy was an excellend "big sister cousin" for Jai too! See Jai holding onto the ring of "Skip" his toy owl in this pic (of us in our PJ's!) Tassy taught him to do that! Before this week he was just holding toys wedged between his 2 flat palms, and now he can grasp onto the rings! Great work Tassy!
Thank you sooooo much for having us Yvette, it was awesome to be able to come down and stay with you! We loved it!
Did you love it too Jaimeson? Yep {hooray face!!}
And we are sooo excited that we get to see you again at DP in 3 weeks! {double hooray!}
:) C

It's almost Road Trip time!

Hi y'all!
Hope you're having a super weekend! Guess where Jaimeson and I are off to on Monday? This link might give you a hint.... YES!! We're off on a Road Trip to our Nation's Capital to visit the uber talented and superiorly crafty Yvette Adams! Yvette and I have known each other for a long long time, actually she has known me longer cos I don't think babies really "know" people til a good few weeks old do they? {inquisitive face}. Yep, she's my sister {score!} We're visiting so Jaimeson can get a deliciously healthy dose of cuddles and I can sip on all of Yvette's creative juices :) And also eat good food, slip in a trip to Costco & chat chat chat! We are really looking forward to it! See you soon Yvette!
And to get the oohs and aahs going, here is one of my fave pics of Jaimeson that I scrapped recently. It's the pic I have chosen to go with his "hands and feet" sculptures we had done when he was 6 weeks old (hmmm... still waiting on it... I should chase that up) I'm glad I have "let go" and allow myself to use some favourite supplies I have been hanging on to for a while (cos I'm a hoarder and I know it! I'm in re-hab {wink!}) cos I just LOVE the tree sticker and the cloud stickers on this page and am so glad I've used them now. There is no sweeter subject to use them for than my son too! {high five!}
And talking about my son.... here he is! I love those raised eyebrows and chubby chubby cheeks. Oh I want to smoosh them right now... pity he's sleeping. I wonder if it would wake him....
:) C

The other Canberra pages...

Yes Yvette, I am spoon feeding you only a couple of pages at a time! LOL! It's only cos I haven't done any scrapping/card making since I left Canberra (oh, actually I finished the last page I did with you.. that will be the next post.. hehehe!) I don't know why I haven't been that creative- I keep looking at my desk and thinking "yes, I'd like to sit there and stamp" but then I just walk away cos my Mojo isn't with me! Annoying! So this is a shout-out to my Mojo- "Come back!!"
I had a look around our house the other day and thought it was time to snap some pics and celebrate the fact that a boy lives in this house now! There are things in places there weren't before, there are new things and boy things everywhere! Every time I open the pantry and see the Spam it makes me smile! And the rice cooker that Will couldn't live without. His pile of shoes at the front door and wallet and keys on the table. Just a bit here and there that remind me we're married and this is my life.. forever. It makes me happy! And I got to use that Basic Grey boy background paper that I've been saving up. Hooray! LOL!!
This was the last page I finished while staying with Yvette, its our Saturday walk through Central Park on our Honeymoon. Oh, how I could travel to America every year and not get sick of it. If only! {sigh... day dreaming off into the distance!} LOL. This woodgrain PP was one of the first "real" scrapbooking papers I bought (OMG, about 10 years ago!) and I've had it in my "discard" pile for a while. Where do you discard old papers to? I have no idea, so they just sit in a plastic bag on my shelves. Well I was going through that bag the other day and resurrected this one and a couple of other papers! What's old is new again, hooray! The green scalloped paper edge is from a free packet I got with my last 2peas order, score! And the white & green shaped journal spot is from Yvette's free stuff. Cool! I love the sweet little kaisercraft tree rub-on off to the side too, and I love the chipboard butterfly! Ok, so this is a pretty simple page but I love lots about it, so that's cool! Yvette inspired me on this page with her awesome "collections" of PP scraps that she layers and they amazingly go together so well! It inspired me to think outside the box when layering papers, cos different patterns and colours can go together so well! Thanks for the Inpsiration Yvette!!
:) C

Some Canberra Scrapping.

Hi Y'all!
Well its taken me a few days to finally get around to posting some of the pages I Scrapped in Canberra with Yvette... what a slacker I am!
This first page is from little (well, not so little anymore) Cooper's second birthday this year. I love the Bee cake Felicity made him and his happy little face when it was put on the table in front of him! He's such a cutie. I love his "unsure" face at the licorice on top of the monster face cupcake he chose! {giggles} Do you like the tiny paper doily? Isn't it sooo sweet! I got them in a packet of 250 from Eastwood for $2. Gotta love those asian shops! LOL! The Maya Road frog rub-on is one of my faves too. Yvette inspired me on this page by helping me to make "layers" with scraps of PP, stickers, rub ons and embellishments. Love her style!
This second page is about our awesome day at Paintball with our friends! It was so cool to get that Camouflage paper out of my stash, I have been waiting to use it on a dirty page like this! It's from the Grafton Collection of Scenic Route. {Heart} cos it's named after my actual home town in Northern NSW. True Story! I know cos Yvette emailed and asked them. Hehe! The brown dirty BG paper is from Kaisercraft. Yvette inspired me on this page cos she told me to use up all that number lace paper to get it out of my stash! Great tip, but I did sneak a little bit from out of underneath one pic so I have a tiny tiny piece left. It's so hard for me to use up stuff! LOL! But I'm going to put it on a card and use it totally up, which makes me feel very liberated (do you know the feeling? When you end up with empty packets of embellishments, or say goodbye to the last scrap of a particular paper in your stash? It feels so good!) It's just that that paper was expensive so I couldn't use it all on one page! Such a tight ass. LOL!
Will and I are going to Wollongong to spend Father's Day to my Dad, hope you have a fantastic Father's Day too!
:) C

Back from Canberra!

Hi Y'all!
We're back from our fun and educational trip to Canberra :) Thanks Yvette, Dave and Tassy for letting us stay, feeding and watering us and chauffeuring us around to all the sites! We had an awesome time with you! You'll have to come to stay with us next time!
We drove down Saturday and I got to spend the afternoon Scrapping with Yvette while Will caught up on some zzzz's! I hoped to do 5 pages over the 2 days, but only managed 4.5 pages, but that's not bad! I love Yvette's style, and she makes it seem just so effortless! If you have ever seen her scrap it's like the page just comes together in the minimum of time! I'm still shuffling stuff around my page and she's got most of her's stuck down! I tried to slow her down with endless requests for cups of tea and snacks {giggles} but she still managed to finish her first page before me! Amazing {clapping hands in admiration!} Then Yvette amazed me even more by whipping up a delicious dinner of Quesedillas [spelling??!] somewhere in the middle of her scrapping. She's a machine.
On Sunday we started out with breakfast at Manuka then went to the Kingston markets. They had the most fabulous foods there (the other goods were only ho-hum) and I bought a delicious loaf of sundried tomato and fetta woodfired bread and some caramel macadamias. Oh soooo good! They cheat though- they give you a sample of warm caramel macadamias that suck you in with their deliciousness, it's virtually impossible to walk away without buying them! Best advertising ploy ever!
After the markets we headed off to New Parliament House (I guess after 22 years I could probably just call it Parliament House!) where Will celebrated Australia being the only country to eat their national emblem by pretending to eat the Roo on the giant steel emblem at the front of the building (see pic above)! We also checked out some of the inside including the House of Reps and saw the Magna Carta (yep we have one of the copies! Who knew?!) and the Prime Minister portraits.
We then checked out Old Parliament House (did you know there is a position called a Government Whip? Thats way cool!) and saw the peep hole into the Prime Minister's office. Dave took us on a tour around the embassies then it was up Black Mountain Tower for an aerial look at Canberra! It has the best view from up there, it's definitely a must if you are visiting Canberra! You can see all around our Nation's Capital, we could almost see Yvette's house! Thanks for pointing out all the sites Y & D, it was cool to see things from a bird's-eye view! Loved it.
It was a fantastic first trip to Canberra ever for Will (yes, very uneducated and unpatriotic!) and a great refresher for me, seeing as I hadn't done the touristy things for about 13 years since I came with my year 10 School Excursion (16hr bus trip from Grafton- that was a trip to remember!) Next time we'll have to come and do some of the museums!
Thank You Yvette for being a wonderful hostess and I loved getting in some scrap time with you too! I'll post the pages soon xoxo
:) C

I'm in Scrapping Heaven!!

Guess where I am right now... I am sitting in the house of the super cool, awsome styled scrapbooker Yvette Adams! YAY! Its also cool for me cos she is actually my sister. Double YAY {cheering}! We did some scrappin last night and I have finished 2.5 pages already, AND we've got another night here to do more. Hooray!!
Today we are just about to head out to see the sights of Canberra and do the touristy stuff, cos Will hasn't been here before. So uneducated! I think we're starting off with breakfast at Manuka, then some markets, Parliament House, Black Mtn Tower (what's that actually called now?) and other cool sites. Looking forward to it! And I'm looking forward to showing you all the cool scrapbooking pages I've done!
:) C

New Order of Things... and a Question??

Oh look, 2 posts in one day! Awesome :)
Yvette and I both put in a 2 peas order last week, hers arrived Weds and mine arrived on Thurs, only a week after submitting it! {Happy Dance!} 2 peas is much much much cheaper than buying at the local store. Sorry I'm not buying Aussie, but when the price is almost double, I can't refuse it! 2 Peas were having a sale, plus gave an extra discount so I got a whole bag of new supplies that I am super super excited about using! Sorry the pics aren't the best, I was rushing cos I was eager to play with the new stuff! Mind you, I haven't yet, I've sifted through it, drooled over it and layed it all out on the dining table. But I've done a page since it arrived and I'm too busy trying to use up old stuff to even touch this new stuff! Do you ever do that? Buy new stuff then not use it cos it's too good? LOL! What a terrible mentality.
Anywho, new stuff got Yvette and I into a conversation about what our top 5 products are. Then I was thinking about what my top 5 probably would have been 10yrs ago when I started seriously scrappin (was it 10 years ago?! OMG! What was I, like 12? Dream on. I was 18. Man that time has flown.) So I'm thinking these days my top 5 are:
1. PP
2. Journalling Spots
3. Thickers
4. Rub ons
5. Lace Paper (mostly cos I'm trying to use up my massive stash of this!)

and 10 years ago my top 5 would have been:
1. Coloured Cardstock
2. Stickers
3. Punches
4. Computer Journalling
5. PP

Isn't it funny to think back on how your style has changed over the last few years! LOL! Wanna see a really embarrassing early page of mine? This is from 2003 about a trip to Cradle Mountain. See 4 my top 5? Coloured cardstock (not even a nice colour!!), Punched snowflake, computer journalling and strips of PP. How embarrassing. Hey, see those 2 snowflake square medallions on bottom right. Did you see one on my recent page of the Grand Canyon!! LOL! I knew they were OLD!!
So what are your top 5? And what were they when you started scrappin?
:)C