nside! Hold on to your hats if you're outside today!! We were so lucky to have such wonderful weather on our holidays, cos as soon as we got home it was freezing and rainy and now gale force winds! So lucky we didn't have that kind of weather on our holiday!
{frowny}. Time just flew past, as it always does when you're on holidays! And with 3 kids under 4 the two of us barely had a moment to sit still, let alone stamp! I wish we could have been just slightly more organised (and less tired!) I'll know for next time, just to grab any available moment! I had managed to pull out the stuff on 2 days at Yamba and do some stamping on the playing-card sized table (honestly, it belonged in Alice in Wonderland) in the half dark (cos Jai was sleeping.) I happily came away with 9 cards over the 2 short sessions, which is a good effort! I didn't take any jewels or paper flowers away with me, so technically I finished the cards here at home, but I'm still claiming them as holiday 
cards! Ok, I went a little Owl mad and made a few owl cards with this giant Maya Road Owl. He hasn't seen ink in quite a while so that's a plus to have him out and inked up {high five!} I hand cut the patterned paper "branch" for the top two cards cos I didn't have any plain card scraps with me. I think they look pretty good! Then I thought I'd do a bit of a 
"funky" orange and blue owl card which I actually really like! It's quite a cool colour combo! I might have to make more in this combo. I love that blue- it's Baja Breeze and is totally one of my fave Stampin Up colours. I'm so pleased they made it a core colour (it started out as an "In Colour" which retire every 2 years). Baja Breeze and Certainly Celery seem to be my most versatile colours. I use them heaps! And to finish I made a more subdued owl card in browns and pinks, always a winning combo!
And here is a holiday snap of us at Whiting Beach at Yamba! We had a wonderful time and it was Jai's first swim at the beach!!
good guess seeing as I love owls, but I've already made Peabody an owl so no. It was..... a Mr Hedgehog taggie!
sewing machine needle and I finished him off {high five!} I am so proud of how he turned out!! I just love him and I hope Peabody does too! And I'm so proud cos I thought of it all on my own and drew the pattern and it actually turned out exactly as I wanted {happy dance!}
These are the fantastic felt Mushrooms Mum made for the entrance. Aren't they just to most awesome mushrooms you have ever seen? And her gorgeous little bunny is so sweet sitting underneath {heart!} There were 3 mushrooms and Peabody, Tassy and Sienna were all lucky to get to take one home. I can't wait to set up Peabody's nursery corner properly and put this mushroom to good use!
Mum and I have been collecting Woodland themed decor for the party, but also once we started looking around our houses at what we already had, it seemed we have heaps of Woodland themed things! So we created this sweet display on Alicia's sideboard, of all things bird, mushroom and Woodland! 
There was candles, Christmas decorations (the mushroom clips and acorn), Birdhouses, pinecone candle holders, baskets of birds etc. Love it!
So if you remember the invite, the colour theme was Brown, Blue, white with a splash of red so I asked my family to make Woodland-ish type food- no baby pink or baby blue icing etc! In this pic you can see Alicia's delicious Macadamia Chicken scrolls, Mum's sweet little Woodland shaped spice cakes and Felicity's awesome birds nest and edible eggs!
One of Mum's friends makes these sweet little Mushroom tarts so she ordered some, aren't they cute! Yvette made the very moist Black Bottom Brownies on the right, there are Palmiers and Chunky Mini-oreo Rocky Road at the back that I made, and Baclava Logs right at the back of this pic on a plate with my ever popular White chocolate chunk and macadamia brownies.
Here are my Mini Lime Meringue tarts. Dad got me a mini food blow torch from Aldi last week so next time I make them they will be even better looking cos these ones I had to brown very carefully under the griller which was hard work! You have to sit and watch it cos they brown very quickly, and quite unevenly under the element so it involved lots of shuffling. Anywho, they look good here!
And how sweet is this Woodland cupcake stand! I bought it in RJ's in Corrimal when I was visiting Mum and Dad last time. I'm not sure what it is actually supposed to be for, maybe it really is a mini bird-bath, but it held my Mini chocolate mudcake cupcakes with peanut butter frosting quite well!
One thing I really wanted at the party was a Washing Line string with my favourite Woodland themed baby clothes pegged to it. It was such a talking point at the party too! Everybody seemed to "oohh and aahh" at the gorgeous little outfits hanging on it!
I love this little "Gone Fishing" outfit on the end, it's perfect for Willy's baby!! So sweet!
Here are the proud Parents-To-Be! Yep, Willy came to the baby shower too :) He's the smart Dad, cos he got to indulge in all the delicious cakes and sweeties! He did join in the games too, which was so sweet!
And here are my lovely sisters and I! Yvette hasn't seen me in person since Christmas when Peabody's bump was still quite small and she probably wont see me again until after Peabody is born (unless you come to Mum's sale Yvette!! I just thought of that!) so she really noticed the difference in my tummy size!
room}. The weeks seem to be sliding away so quickly! Already it's only 6 months til Christmas! What the?! When did that happen??
will be bringing their children so concentrating on making a structured card is a bit of hard work with so much distraction! I love the little animals in this set, they're all so so so cute! You know I love owls, so clearly can't get enough of them, but the little monkey and the fox are my faves from this set :) They're great for little boy cards, which are so hard to find cool stamps for. Plus the sentiments from Little Angel set co-ordinate perfectly too. The Pumpkin Pie/Choc Chip and Baja Breeze combo of the first card would be great for little boys while the Pretty In Pink, Pale Plum and Certainly Celery combo makes such a sweet baby girl card!
On this third card, Kraft, Choc Chip, Baja Breeze and Certainly Celery combo, I hand cut the tree and drew some growth rings on with my SU Chocolate Chip marker so the fox & owl would have something to hang around on this card. I inked the fox in Pumpkin Pie then used my Chocolate Chip marker again to colour the tips of his ears and tail before stamping him on white. I think it turned out fantastically! I tried it again with the owl and used my real red marker to do a swish across the Perfect Plum ink on the wing and the ear tips., also successful :) Look at that cute little face on the fox, he's so sweet!!
now and then right? Right?! How do you like these little Owlies? Well, they're not that little actually, they're about 20cm tall but they were so much fun to make! {Insert Will: "What are those Racoons doing there?" LOL!} I got the pattern off My Owl Barn, in a very convoluted way, linking to another page and another page etc.. anywho... here they are! They have a different fabric front and back, plus the tummy is a different fabric again. So cute! I made a black and white one for 
Xander, and another one for a mystery little person (keep your fingers crossed if you're a little person cos it might be for you! Though little persons can't usually read so wouldn't know to expect one... hmm...what a conundrum).
making them, getting back into hand sewing is nice. I was sitting on the lounge on Monday night sewing and watching TV with Will and I felt like Mum, watching TV while sewing next to Dad!! It was a funny feeling... kinda like seeing your future. LOL! But Dad (aka Will) didn't have control of the remote on this lounge, I still did! {giggles}.
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!
just so cute and so easy to make!! Craft Schmaft patterns are so cool and cover everything from Sock Monkeys to Sock Giraffes! Super!! Pete is made from a baby sock, so he is only about 10cm tall. It's actually a baby explorer sock so I used the fluffy inside as Pete's outside, which I think gives him a nice texture!!
himself. Have you ever had a toy that named itself? Mostly soft toys do that, I've had a few Teddy Bears that have begged to come home with me too cos they "spoke" to me!! You know what I mean Mum!! Well here's my example of naming Pete:
squish into a baby bag or toy bag as well as sit up happily on a shelf! I love him. And plan on making lots more pals for him! Felicity already asked for one for the new baby so I'm on an owl mission now! The challenge is finding nice socks that have a contrast toe and heel (the heel makes his coloured "face" and the toe makes his feet), so I've had a bit of fun searching the sock aisles at Target and Big W!! Yay for end of season sales!!
9wks to go she's looking so fab!! I have been saving this so sweet PP for ages and it went perfectly with Fliss's pretty top! I also used the last one of my blue MM half artisan shapes from the notebook which I had been "saving" for a special page. And I felt this was special enough to break it out! (I'm such a duschbag sometimes, hoarding all my stuff!) The cream paper under the pics is a Chatterbox one I got from Yvette, it's embossed in silver foil and is SOOOO pretty! Bummer it didn't come out in the pic. The OLD on this page is the pink fozz felt flowers, the heart felt cut out, the heart sticker, blue tab and the rub ons. Thanks Yvette for giving me the idea to punch out the AC owl paper, cos I had no idea how I was going to use those cute as owls on a LO cos the paper is SO busy with them! 
Scalloped rectangles I'm always using on cards? We'll I've got an extra set and I'm selling them now on ebay, so if you're interested head over and have a look! At the moment they are only 99c so you could bag a real bargain! The matching plain edge rectangle dies are in a separate auction, check them out too. They can be used with lots of die cut machines like the Cuttlebug (which I use) the Ellison Big Shot, Spellbinder's Wizard etc. I love them and I've had heaps of fun using my set. I want to buy all the different shapes now!!
I couldn't find it, so I'm posting it again. Sorry if you've already seen it!! I'm kinda sure I did post it at some stage... oh well! Can you believe I'm 27? Nope, me neither! We went to a delicious cafe at Balmain called Bar Contessa for Sunday lunch and hung out chatting for a couple of hours! Check out all my awesome birthday presents! It's tradition for me to lay out all my presents on my bed and take a pic (I remember typing that before, so this page must be posted somewhere?!) It's a really good reminder of when I got what! I wanted to show you the bag that Mum made me, remember the other day at the show I said we ran into the lady who designed and printed the fabric?! Yeah, she was thrilled to see the bag!! I love my top too, shhhhh it's just from BigW, man they have some nice clothes these days! And it cost me only $10 so you can't complain about that!!
had this ipod paper for ages and hadn't used it yet! When I bought the Prima Owl stamp at the show on Weds I knew I wanted to use it with this paper for some funky chick cards! The Owl is so cute! She has an eye patch that has a tiny Skull and Cross Bones on it!! Lol!! I traced around her with my normal black pen to make her outline stand out more. The grungy Happy Birthday and round star "celebrate" stamps are from a Studio G acrylic packet I got at the show also. The cool 
fibre I got on a roll from Yvette years ago and have finally broken it out. I really like it! I think you'll see it more and more now, I don't know why I haven't used it before?! Probably cos it was buried on my super neat {wink!} desk! And true to my style I made another one the same, only with different colours and a different PP for the artisan shape. Do you like them?
spotty PP where I had cut out the Artisan shape with my nestabilites die, I was inspired to make another card, this time using my new Stampin Up "Forest Friends" set from the Spring Mini. Oh this set is just so darn cute! I hope to get lots of use out of it!! There are 4 images- deer, tree, rabbit and owl; they are pretty small images though, but I'm sure I'll work out some cute ways of using them! I glittered up some of the tree's leaves and traced around the artisan shape with my glitter jellyroll too. Oh so cute! I might have to keep this one in my personal stash cos I have an idea of who to give it too {shhhhh}.
guys are all Hero Arts owls I got at the Art Stamps stall at Craft Fest back in early March. They are just gorgeous! And I got the tiny mushrooms in bottom left corner and the sentiment there too :) I am loving that they have all the stamps as separates cos I got so many different stamps from different sets. Love them! I also love the Hero Arts woodgrain circle I used in the BG. I think I might get the woodgrain rectangle shape next time too, I love woodgrain!
getting old cos by the end I was so dead tired!! We had been standing for the better part of about 6hours so I don't think I can be blamed! The best acts for me were Duffy- man she sounds exactly like the CD in real life, that massive voice comes out of someone so tiny too!! She was great and we got pretty close (Will got almost close enough for a kiss.. well not quite, but the big screens were great for making us feel 
even closer!), the Kaiser Chiefs- awesome!! they played my fave song from the Hottest 100 a couple of years ago and it went off! and The Killers who totally ROCKED!! I can't get over how many people were there. We had to run between the stages cos the Kaiser Chiefs overlapped with Snow Patrol who overlapped with The Killers, all by 15 mins which totally sucked cos we missed 
some songs of each then. By the time we got to The Killers there were already about 30000 people there!! And we were only half way back!! Look how far we were from the stage!! Even this far back everyone was jumping, cheering, singing so loudly and having an awesome time! It was so great, although my feet were spasming from standing up too long! Lol. It was a fun day though. I think I OD'ed on too much free Coke Zero though. OOhhh... I don't want to see Coke Zero again for a while!
I'm sharing this scrap page I did last week of my birthday this year. I have had this red paper for absolutely YONKS, so it's awesome to have it out of my stash (Boo hoo, I bought 3 new papers at Spotlight yesterday, I think I'm still ahead though!!) Look at all my cool birthday presents! Didn't I get totally spoilt.. yep!! {cheering!!} I love that last little remnant of Sass Lass paper on the left and I cut the cute owl out of the other end of that scrap. I love the Sass Frass owl!!
Felicity wanted a card for a friend who just had a baby boy and like me, the friend loves Woodland animals! So this was a super easy card for me to make, cos you know I love owls and the woodgrain is so sweet! The brown spotty paper is Stampin Up Close to Cocoa designer series paper, I love it and the ribbon I got at the Scrappin shop in Yamba back in Oct! I don't know what I would do without this October Afternoon owl set, I use it all the time!
birthday. I love the clouds and the boat is from the baby boy set. This is the first time I have used buttons in fully ages! Buttons were the first craft thing I started collecting and hoarding all those years ago. Mostly I got them from the Op Shop at home but I have bought them on and off from real stores too {lol!}. It was so nice to get some out and embellish this card, I love them!
