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

Cooking Up a Storm!!

I may have mentioned in passing once before, that it is my birthday tomorrow {wink!}. And y'all know I'm having a Halloween Party (check the date, yep Jan 31! Unconventionalism is my middle name, or is Danger my middle name? I forget. Anywho....) I decided to make my birthday cake after being inspired by a cake in Martha Stewart Living mag back in October. Thankfully I was able to sell one of my kidneys to pay for the $15.00 price of the magazine from Borders. Damn imported mags!! So tonight I went straight to Woolies after work to buy food for the party and made it home at 7:30. I took stock of myself and the kitchen and at 7:50 began cooking. In just over 2 hours I made 2 Mississippi Mud Cakes (Yvette's delicious recipe {hugs!}), brownies and Almond Roca (a request from my work friends). Needless to say now I am Pooped!! Totally! I think so much butter soaked into my skin that I will just slip and slide into bed tonight!! In total there were 4 pats of butter used in the recipes, whoa!!

I made 2 Mud cakes so that I could trim one about an inch in, layer it on top of the other mud cake and make a "mountain" on which to set up the Cemetary which adorns the top of the cake (buscuits dipped in chocolate for the tombstones and a chocolate stick fence!) Here is the adulterated cake cos I "had to check if it would trim well" (what I really mean is "I wanted to eat some while it was hot!" {delicious!})

Wow, so tired. But it's only 37mins til my birthday, I'm going to stay up damn it!!

The other fun news I have is that these little beauties arrived in the mail on Wednesday...

Hurrah Hurrah!! I have been wanting to get them ever since I saw them back in about September last year they are way way way way cool! Yvette alerted me to them being on a local scrap site (not to be exxposed) for $49 for the small sets and $59 for the big one. I couldn't believe it! I had paid $22 for my first sets!! I bought my first sets off the KISS stall at the Darling Harbour Quilt Fair and Lana the lovely owner had given me a flyer with her email and told me I could email if I ever wanted to buy more Nestabilites. Well, I emailed her and she quoted me the bargain price of $33 each for the small ones and $37 for the big one. WHAT!! Can you believe the difference!! WHOA!! {Happy Dancing Iriquois Indian style}. I had to get them all (and an embossing mat to use with them for $3. Hehe!) I am just so pleased with the price, I mean its a $54 saving!! I recommend everyone buy off her, what a bargain! Her email is here.

So I am a happy girl! Most of the cooking is done for my party and I got New Nestabilites and it's my birthday in under half an hour!

Quick my last wise words as a 26yo: Never play Leapfrog with a Unicorn.

:) C

Book about me, last few pages...

I think these will be the last few pages of my "Being Charlotte Kingman" book that I'll be able to have time to make before my birthday in 2 sleeps time! I wanted to have all the pages done but I still have some pics sitting around on my desk and some ideas still in my head! But I think I am about 3/4 of the way through, so it's not too bad!

Ah owls.. I love them! Have you guessed yet, considering all the Owls that appear here and there in my cards and on my pages?!! It all started with one long silver Owl necklace Alicia thought I would love from America. And she was right!! Now I have 3 owl necklaces, earrings, Christmas decorations, keyring, T-shirt, Jumper, figurine and Statue, is that too much? I can't help it, they are just so so cute! I love them! I think all the graphic images are the cutest (see the rub-on on this page and the cute one on my shirt). I really want to get some Owl wall art to brighten up Brownville a bit more, I think that would be awesome!!

So I decided to do a page on my bookshelf too, seeing as reading is a big part of my daily schedule. I love novels, both fact and fiction. My fave author is Diana Gabaldon and I absolutely LOVE the Outlander series (or Cross Stitch for us Aussies), I also love crime/forensics like Kathy Reichs (Bones is one of my fave shows on TV too!) and Patricia Cornwell. Of course I have the Harry Potter books and I have read all of Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series! Thats a lot of books! At the moment I am reading a non-fiction about Louis XIV's mistress Athenais. Very interesting lives those Frenchies lead in the 17th Century! I think this is the era when the French got their reputation for Love Makers. And for being Nancy Boys too though! It might go hand in hand!!

:) C

Collage #3 for Project 365.

It's almost my birthday (3 more sleeps!) and I am still taking pics for Project 365 what an effort {blowing on a hooter and waving arms}. Hurrah Hurrah!!
Project 365 is the aim to take a pic a day for a whole year. I know most people are using this as a way to better their photography skills and learn how to take better pics. I'm just trying to find something interesting to take a pic of. Seriously, a milk bottle? Ok, that pic is because every year around my birthday I try to find a carton of milk with my Birth date as the expiry date. Odd? Yes. I know. But it's become somewhat of a tradition for me and I must never miss doing this around my birthday!
Other things done this last 9 days worth of pics are: Get a blood test for my Diabetes, help Felicity make Cooper's First birthday invites one night after work,(40 invites- 3 hours start to finish. Not bad!), washing (I need to remember the every day too!), my birthday bottle, work lunch with the boys, spending the whole day on Alicia's sooo comfy lounge watching foxtel, Awesome!, Kung Hei Fat Choy! (Happy Chinese New Year!) at Will's house, Australia Day in the city with Alicia and my new Uber Cool apple lamp. Yep, an apple with a bulb inside. Pure genious!
Happy Hump Day!
:)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!

Hot. Boy it's hot. Did I mention Hot?

Pour me into a tall glass over ice and sip me..... I've melted! Wow, what a stinker of a day! It was 40ºC here today and the minute I stepped into the sun I could feel the burn begin! Luckily for me I have sisters who love me and I spent today basking in Alicia's Air-con watching her Foxtel. Hurrah for Foxtel! We did venture out to spend vast amounts of my long earned peanuts from work (this always happens when you step near any cool shop with Alicia. She's so enthusiastic and knowledgeable.. this time it only cos me $60. Phew!) and I got 2 uber cool lamps. Keep your eyes out for them in a later post. Too cool. Now there is a forgivingly cool wind and I am no longer sticking to my chair with sweat. Double Hurrah!

So back to the Scrapping.. Here are 2 more pages in my Book about Me. You can see other pages posted here and here and here. Only 1 week to go til my birthday so I'd better get cracking! {Whooot-chir. That's a whip noise BTW.}

Have I mentioned I love baking (yeah, about a million times!) so I had to do a page highlighting some of the cute cupcakes I've made! Oh I love creating and choosing new ways to decorate them! I'm so happy to have this cupcake paper in my album too, it's so cute!

One of my other passions at the moment is Yellow Clothing. Who would have thought? It started with the yellow dress Alicia bought me at Wetseal on one of her trips and blossomed from there! Yellow Clothes HAD to make an apperance in my album cos they have been such an obvious part of my wardrobe this year! I got the cutest yellow bikini when we were on hols in Yamba too.. Love it!

Hope you've cooled off a little too!

:) C

Blue and Red Boys.

Damn it. Why is my computer desk located in such proximity to the kitchen bin? The wafting aroma is reminding me its time to take the bin out, but its pretty low on my to-do list. I might have to bump it up the list a little if I sit here much longer... it STINKS!! {crinkling nose}. I don't even know what is in there that is so stinky. Anywho, it's gotta go.... Later.

A couple more boy/man cards to share today. I ended up making 5 cards last night, which was pretty cool. The box is quite boosted up now! These cards are really simple, just using scraps out of my bag of little pieces. I like pulling out all the little pieces and seeing what goes together! But man I am a hoarder. I keep the tiniest little bits of paper, like a squirrel preparing for the Armageddon (not just winter!!). Or maybe like the Squirrel on Ice Age. That guys has determination, I like his style. The frame was an experiment when I first got my Nestabilities, I'm so happy to have finally used it and got it off my desk!

This next one is a simple card with a cute little felt present adornment! Love it! I die cut the Scalloped Rectangle out of the Fiskars INk range paper and stuck a cute tiny little silver star on it also. I like "Wishing you the best day ever" as a sentiment. It's how I feel about birthdays! I love them to be special and all about you. Birthdays always were special in my family when we were growing up (and even til now), you open presents in bed, someone makes your bed for you, you get to choose what shaped cake you want and what you want for dinner! Love it! It is the Best Day Ever for me!

The third card I hate. I think I will put it in the box just to see if anyone buys it (then I will eat my words {munch}). I thought I was the only person who didn't like some things they make (and still persist in looking at them and not chucking them in the bin) but I read on a blog yesterday one woman hates almost everything she makes (she said she was her own worst critic!) This made me feel so much better!! I don't usually hate a lot of my work, just now and then. And this is now. I grabbed a whole bunch of small scraps out of my bag and stuck them all together and hoped they worked. What do you think? It doesn't really look toooooo bad IRL, here it's the dog's breakfast. Mock me, if you wish. I can take it. And here, I deserve it! Gross!

P.s. My endocrinologist gave me a smile today (not her usual Stern Librarian look) after my HbA1C (3 monthly average blood sugar level) was down 0.8% which brings me back into the "Adequate control" range. Woo Hoo! {High Five!} Pat me on the back will you... yeah like that... thanks.

:) C

Grunge It Up.

Skulls, grunge, orange and black. It's not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure! But when Alicia said she needed some more man cards I set about making some different ones (she is my best customer after all {hugs!!}). I haven't used the orange and black colour scheme before and it was fun! I think they turned out quite well :) Mum will probably hate them! I didn't want to make them too involved and full of layers (being "involved" makes me think they are a bit too girly cos I imagine different beautiful papers and flowers and colouring- and guys just don't care!) I do love this skull, its quite anatomical really, with the sockets, cavities and fissures. It must hark back to my Developmental and Comparative Anatomy days at Uni, they were my favourite subjects! The 'wishing you a one of a kind birthday' is the most boy-ish birthday sentiment I have too, so it gets a real beating. Guy stuff is really hard to come by! Let me know if you find any cool guy stamps {wishing someone would have made stamps of some of the cool drawings on the desks and walls at school! There were some truly talented kids there!.} The PP is from Fiskar's Ink range which is the same range as the stamps are from. It's really cool to have matching paper and stamps- I never usually do! I have ordered some new Stampin Up papers which will match my SU stamps too. I can't wait to use them!
Happy Hump Day of the Week! Tomorrow is "out to dinner" night with my work friends. Yippee!!
:) C

Project 365 collage #2

Wow, I am 20 days down and still taking pics! What an effort! This week I have done some more exciting things so there are more interesting pics :) The highlights this week included a shopping trip to Newtown with Willy, seeing Felicity and Cooper 3 times, getting my hair cut, having brunch with Alicia and Felicity at Cafe Taste {YUM!} and my first Stampin Up party of 2009.

I can't believe I'm still going, after 20 days! I like viewing these pics in the collages too, its a cool overview of the last 9 days!

:) C

First Stampin Up Workshop of 2009.

I did a fun, chatty, busy, loud, enthusiastic Stampin Up workshop today which was awesome! It was my first for 2009 and the ladies were so lovely. A big cheers to my Hostess, Natalie! She has lovely friends (my sis included {wink!}) and they were mostly new to Stamping so it was lots of fun introducing these ladies to the joys of Stampin Up and watching their enthusiasm! We made 2 simple cards, one for the kiddies and a more adult card (I don't mean the XXX kind! {giggles})
My Bugs and Kisses set has seen quite a bit of ink, as far as my SU stamps go. It's such a cute set for babies and little kids. This was a simple card to introduce the ladies into stamping and they had a lot of fun choosing the bugs and colours. It always amuses me to see people starting out with stamping and having a go for the first time! They are always so nervous and spend ages hovvering above the cardstock, too nervous to press the stamp to the paper! It has been SO long since I was at that stage! I love watching other people blossom into confident card makers though!
The second card we made was with A Happy Heart set from the new Mini Catalogue. I just LOVE {heart glowing} the fact that the dandylion seeds are tiny tiny hearts!! Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? I think so :) The flourish is from Baroque Motifs and the Square scallop punch is out of the mini catalogue too.
I have read a few comments from blogs saying Baroque Motifs is in their top 2 Favourite SU sets of all time. Felicity and I tried googling it cos I wanted to see if there was actually a list of the best sellers ever but we couldn't find any info. If anyone knows, give me a heads up! I'm so curious to find out which sets are the most popular!!
I hope y'all had a good weekend!
:) C

Birthday Invites.. Spook your socks off!

Did I mention it's my birthday at the end of the month? No? Oh wait.. only about a million times! Well this year I have decided to have a party. And since I missed out on Alicia's Halloween Party back in Oct, (and cos we don't really celebrate it here in Australia anyway so the date doesn't particularly matter, LOL) I have planned a Halloween Party! I had so much fun designing some Spooky invites! I wanted something black, like a bat or a coffin and decided the former was too hard so stuck with the Coffin. Well, they turned out really well! I didn't need to buy any new supplies either cos they're made just from black and white cardboard, some brads, silver inked edges and I stamped RIP on the front in white brilliance and added the recipients name under that in silver gel pen. Cool!! I loved them and was so pleased when they got great reviews from some of my friends too (others obviously have no concept of cool, handmade invites!)
I made up this spooky little rhyme for the inside in about 5mins while I was at work (who says I never get anything done!!) instead of just writing all the details out (booorrriiinnggg!!) Hope you like it!

Ghosts and Ghouls
Will gather at eight,
To howl and wail
For the life of their mate.
It’s Charlotte’s birthday
Come along, celebrate!
{address},
Is where to congregate,
January 31,
the frightening date.
Dressed as something spooky
Whatever your fate.
Witches, Pumpkins, Zombies,
Don’t be late!

I was so proud of it! Now I just can't wait for the party!

:) C

About me.. more.

And more pages for my "Being Charlotte Kingman" book about me. It's really coming together now and I have some more pics waiting to be scrapped! Only 2 weeks to go til I'm not 26 anymore, so I have to make sure I finish it by then!

Here's my wonderful family! I love these guys, and we have managed to get all together a couple of times this year which has been fantastic! We love getting to hang out together. This page has some of my all time favourite products- the MM artisan journalling piece, Maya Road Owl rub on, Colorbok sticker that says "Pieces of the same cake" {Lol! Heart glowing with pride}, Doodlebug paper frills and the Creative Imaginations lettering stickers that I've had for positively EONS!! I had to construct a 'Y' out of a curly letter 'Z' cos I had run out of Y's- Yvette taught me how to think creatively to make other letters out of Z's and all the unused letters. Thanks Yvette! That is a useful piece of creative info :)

And then here are my friends:

A funny bunch of different nationailites and personalities but a close bunch once we get together. Who would have thought all these different people could be friends! We all became friends at work and the best thing is there are a few couples within the group so we don't have to worry about partners who are "outsiders" and don't fit in. Get what I mean?

I found this really cool black embossed paper in my stash and I know I've had it for at least 4 years! I'm pretty sure I bought it when I worked at the Scrapbook shop (now you know why I have so much stuff from so long ago) and I finally thought- "Stuff it, I'm cutting into it and it's going into the book about me!" I lightly inked up the edges in silver ink so it would highlight the embossed pattern and it shows up pretty well here. I'm glad to have this out from being buried in my stash and actaully used! It's so pretty.

Will and I are off to Newtown for a look around today. Yay! Something interesting for my Project 365! Lol

:) C