Project Life Week 2

Hi y'all!
Say hello to Week 2 of my Project Life album! Woot woot {party hooters going off}. It really is fun to capture the everyday moments and slide them in to the little pockets! Lovin' it!
Left Hand Side: Hot Hot Hot weather in Sydney, so a trip to Mum and Dad's was in order! We enjoyed their pool & Air con!
I have also done a "Favourites" card for each of us, and I plan to do one every season, to see how our faves change, or not! Also, it includes fave TV shows and what books we're reading, so I imagine those things might change.Willy didn't have many pics in this week's LO so he got his favourites card in first!

Right Hand Side: A trip to a funky new cafe, with a pic of my food (of course!)
Look! Venice is still in Alicia's tummy!
And a pic of Jai and Mama picking "Toe Toes" as he calls them (tomatoes). So cute!
So you can see I'm not using all the same shape Page protector, here I have 6 landscape pics on the LHS and 6 portrait pics on the RHS. I'm loving the different shaped pockets, it's stretching my creativity! LOL! So, I'm always set for the LH page, cos it's dictated by whatever shape I've chosen for the week before, but I choose the RH page by thinking about what pics I have taken for the week. It's working out so far!
How is your PL going?
:) C

Welcome Venice!!

There was big news in my family yesterday... we welcomed my sister Alicia's new little baby girl into the world!! Welcome Venice Emma!!

We raced home from our Beach Holiday at Minnie Water to make it to the hospital before visiting hours was over, and we made it with 15mins to spare! Talk about cutting it fine! But we really wanted to meet Venice on her birthday and get cuddles.

Boy I forgot just how tiny newborns are!
They didn't know if they were having a girl or a boy, but I think we were all hoping Alicia would have a little baby girl she could share her love of fashion with! And she did!

Jaimeson was sooo interested in Venice! I lifted him up to the bed so he could see her, and he pointed and looked excitedly at her! When I put him back down on the floor he said "Uppah! More ba!" He wanted to be lifted up to see More baby! So cute!

Here is Jai busily waving "Hello!" to his new cousin! Newborn Venice means that Jaimeson isn't the baby of the family any longer! {sigh- my baby is growing up!}

Venice has big soft chubby cheeks, super fair eyebrows and eyelashes (what eyebrows?!) and long long fingers! Just gorgeous! She evens out the numbers in the family too- 3 boy grandchildren, 3 girl grandchildren for Mum & Dad! Neat!

I was so happy we made it back and got to meet Venice on her birthday! Happy Birthday Venice! Great work Alicia & David!!

Thanks for the cuddles Venice! Aunty Charlotte is looking forward to many more!
:) C

Inspired by Fashion

Hello!
Happy Monday! I'm a little sore after the City2Surf, but I haven't fared too bad! At least I can walk without "ow-ing" every time I take a step! More about the City2Surf later... now I wanted to share Alicia's Birthday card. It's not often I take inspiration from Fashion for my cards and I'm not sure why because this one was really fun to make! Alicia is the Fashion Queen and so I knew she'd love a card that reflected one of my favourite trends at the moment and that is blush and black with a touch of Gold. I got my inspiration from a Wetseal email I got recently (it's an American chain like Supre- great for wardrobe inspiration!) and an outfit I bought with Alicia recently that reflects this trend. I was soooo happy with how the card turned out, and Alicia really liked it! I love birds and thought the birdscage was very on-trend and paired it with the black card which I punched with my Martha Doily edge punch. Then I gathered the ribbon while I sewed it on, so it gave it some awesome texture and looks really cool! I stamped the flourish from Stampin Up's Baroque Motifs set in Brilliance Gold off the top edge of the card, well first I stamped it in Brilliance white but you couldn't see it so I re-stamped it, off-set, in gold which means you can just see the white in some light. Pretty cool! Oh I am so happy with this card (hmm... I have mentioned that before, do you think I'm pretty proud of it?! {giggles}) and I think I'll have to turn to my catalogues more often for inspiration!
:) C

Happy Birthday Alicia!!

It's Alicia's Birthday today {crowd singing salutations in the background} and our family headed off to the St Malo Bakery at Crows Nest for brunch. This bakery is pretty new I think and they make the most amazing artisan breads and french style pastries and tarts. OMG the food was amazing! Not just to eat, but to look at, and the breads were so fresh and rustic homestyle too. So beautiful! I bought a Date and Walnut Light Rye Sourdough loaf to bring home ($6.50- but totally worth it) and I just ate a piece and it is soooo delicious! It's quite heavy but so substantial and oh so good. The outside is crusty while the inner sourdough is springy and moist. So good! The cafe has a cool french flair with iron chandeliers and filigree wallpaper (a cool filigree, not grandma filigree) with wood panelling and wooden tables & chairs. I didn't get any snaps of the showcases of food so I borrowed this pic from someone else's blog (thank you!) I had (well, Mum, Alicia and I all had- cos it sounded so good) Brioche French Toast with maple syrup & banana. And it was really yummy! Doesn't it just look sooooo good? It was. Dad had the King's breakfast which was a big breakfast with the lot- and lived up to it's name! I love that they give you a tiny puff pastry star dusted with cinnamon sugar on the side of your coffee saucer! I love little touches like that :) they make eating out so special! We spent almost 2hrs at the cafe! Then we shopped around Crows Nest shops a bit more before stopping for another coffee (not as good as at St Malo- in fact so not as good that I didn't bother to remember that cafe's name!) and heading home. It was such a fun day and I really recommend St Malo Bakery! They were soooo good. Also you can shop around Thomas Dux at Crows Nest afterwards for some fun gourmet stuff to cook at home! It was a great day out and I hope you had a fun day Alicia!
I'll leave you with a pic of Granny with Xander having a little play, oh he loves his Granny! She was making him smile so big! He doesn't giggle yet, but you could so see it in his face :) Xander was making the rest of us giggle at him though, he's such a cutie! I can't believe he is already 13 weeks old, he's getting to be a big guy already!
Happy Saturday! We've got the City2Surf tomorrow, wish us luck! Luckily Will's Dad just called to take us out to dinner, I expect a big feed of rice will sustain us through the 14kms!
:) C

New Years Resolution.... RESOLVED!!!

Yes, with the completion of this page I have managed to kick the butt of my New Year's Resolution!!! I resoluted (resolved??) to use up 20% of my Patterned Paper stash and scraps pile. That's right, I originally had to use 54 patterned papers without buying any more, which initially blew out to 89 papers cos my self control hadn't kicked in and I kept buying papers! But on Wednesday, it happened...... I DID IT!! Are you proud?? I am, cos when I started I realised it was a really daunting prospect for me, I only did 68 pages last year and so to use up 89 papers was gonna be hard! But I did it {happy dance!!} I'm even one paper ahead! I am really looking forward to getting some more new, fresh papers but I do want to use up some more of my stash before then. It's very theraputic to be using through stuff that I have hoarded for years!! Wow, it's like a weight off my shoulders!
A bit about the page: the title is actually a linen swing tag that came on a cute top I bought in Grafton! I loved the tag and knew I wanted to use it on a page and when this pic came along I knew it was perfect!! The OLD on this page is the heart lace cardstock, the fozz felt, the slide holder, the rub on flowers and the "bestfriends" and "family" stickers. I love my sisters! Thanks for always being there for me and for making our Engagement Party special and for all your help with the party too MWAH {kissing noise!}
:) C

Oh, so early... am I awake yet?

Hey y'all. I'm Up and At-om {giggles thinking of that Simpson's episode} already and it's only 7:30. You know it's way too early for me so this may be a short post!

We were super busy again at work last night, being 4 ppl down all day and with Will and I not doing OT (they never survive without us!) They shut down my sub-department so they could use my staff and then I had a staffer call in sick this morning so I decided to wake up early and head into work early. Early for me is to start at 8am, so I"m sorry if thats your normal start time but I don't cope too well with it! And I'll probably end up working 12hrs or more too, oh, the pain, I'm feeling it already!!

Share time! This is a page I finished on Friday about my sisters and a couple of reasons why I love them! There are more, but they couldn't all fit on the page {wink!}. I wish the pic was bigger but I don't print my pics at home and I had originally printed it this size and wasn't inspired by any other pics in my collection so I had to scrap this one! I picked up a whole bunch of scraps off my desk to embellish this page- the semi-transparent bird I found fallen down the back of my desk when I took out my sewing machine the other day! The little scalloped spotty bit, the stamped circle, the big silver brad and the ribbon were all little bits found around the top of my desk! It's nice to have them out and on a page now! Do you like the Martha Stewart Doily edge punch at the top of the flower paper? Alicia got it in America for me, I love it! Sorry for the terrible pic, I've found it really hard to take nice pics in the bad weather lately. Plus now with Daylight saving over it gets dark before I get home from work! Boo Hoo!!

Well, better run off to work now, hope your week started well!

:) 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!

New stuff = Happy Me :)

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

Sometime later I managed this page:

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

:) C

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

Pink Free!! {EEK!}

I SOLEMNLY DECLARE THAT I WILL NOT USE PINK THIS WEEK!!!
I DECLARE THIS WEEK TO BE "PINK FREE" FOR ME!!

Oh no! What have I done? Remember a couple of posts back I said I would try to not use so much pink? Well I'm making this declaration so I stick to my promises! For the next week I will not be using pink, not in my cards or my scrapping. I will try to not even let a little bit sneak in... {but you know how sometimes there is just the tiniest bit of pink on papers... its gonna be hard!!} But I will try :)
So... here are my first efforts in the Pink Free week:
Alicia (my sis) has been invited for the past 2 years onto the Bond's Ferry for the annual Australia Day Ferry Race on Sydney Harbour and she has generously taken me along {hugs}! We have had the most AWESOME time both years, it's just a fun filled day and the atmosphere on the harbour is spectacular!! There are soooo many boats following in the 4 ferrie's wakes and we are singing, dancing, cheering and enjoying ourselves as we race around! I LOVE it! I have never really done much in the way of patriotic stuff on Australia Day (usually just BBQ's) so it's awesome to feel some National Pride :)
And of course, NO PINK!! {Woo Hoo!}
And a card too! NO PINK!! I love tree and bird stuff at the moment so when I found this Hero Arts Stamp at Art Stamps for $6 I was cheering! It is totally stuck on the block at a massive angle compared to the image on the block though, which is totally frustrating. I guess that's the bonus of mounting your own with SU, you mount them exactly how you want them! It makes beautiful cards though (once I worked out the correct angle to stamp it!)
I hope you like them! I will continue in my efforts to maintain a PINK FREE WEEK!
:)C