Its almost the weekend!!!

Yay it's Thursday night! I only have to work half a day tomorrow, so it's practically the weekend!! I'm loving watching the Australian Open at the moment. Except it's really messing with the amount of sleep I'm getting! I love watching Roger Federer, he's so amazingly good!


I'm very excited as I just made my first SU order as a demo!!! It was all for me, which is even better! I spent a small fortune, but thats ok. I turned out to be mostly paper and ribbon and I ended up with quite a few sets of free stamps thanks to Sale-A-Bration. For every $100 you spend, you can choose a free stamp set from the Sale-A-Bration catalogue .

There's 4 sets to choose from and I ended up getting 8 free sets! So I ordered 2 of each. That may give you an indication of how much I spent on my order! Naughty me!! :)


The Sale-A-Bration special ends on Febuary 28, so there's plenty of time to save up to get some freebies!

Due to the fabulous hostess perks that SU gives as well, I ended up more than doubling my ink pad collection! I also ordered a Crop-o-dile which I'm sure I'll have lots of fun with. Oooh I can't wait til it all arrives. I'm also looking forward to being able to spend more time playing with the demo kit this weekend. I'm going to try to master watercolouring the Load of Love pick up truck.


I also have some good news on the non-SU cards that my Mum's been selling for me. She's only showed them to 2 people so far and i've already sold $22 worth, which is pretty good as they're only priced at $2-$2.50! So about 11 of them. And she mentioned it to another friend of hers who has put in an order for $50 worth!!! So I have to make at least another 25 cards sometime soon. I wonder when I'm going to fit in time to sleep?!

Happy Australia Day!

Happy Australia Day!


I've been spending some of my day making some cards with my new Stampin' Up! goodies! I've been having lots of fun with these over the weekend and I made 2 cards today which I am quite pleased with. I made a couple on Saturday but I'm not 100% happy with them. I also attempted a box which definitely needs work!

All products are Stampin' Up! except for the ribbons. I did do my first few stay put bows which turned out quite well.


Card 1 - Stamps: Fun & Fast Notes & Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Paper: Pink Passion, Whisper White, Yo Yo Yellow and Confetti Simply Scrappin. Ink: Basic Black & Versamark. Other: Stampin Pastels, Blender Pens, Misc ribbon.

Card 2 & 3

Stamps:Loads of Love, Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Ink: Real Red, Basic Black, Brilliant Blue and Pixie Pink. Paper - Confetti Simply Scrappin, Whisper White, Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion, Versamark. Other: Misc ribbon, blender pens & Aqua pens

Card 4 - Stamps: Fun & Fast Notes & Itty Bitty Backgrounds. Paper: Whisper White, So Saffron & Ballet Blue. Ink: Basic Black & Versamark. Other: American Craft ribbon, Blender Pen, and Stampin Pastels

Card 5 - Stamps: Greetings Galore. Paper: Taken with Teal and Yo Yo Yellow. Ink: Basic Black and Versamark. Other: Stampin Pastels, Blender Pen, Misc Ribbon.

70th Birthday Card

This evening I did a fairly quick card for my Uncle. He turns 70 on Monday.

It's kind of an odd looking card and probably not very masculine but I'm going through a lime/brown/pink phase at the moment!

I used my cuttlebug numbers folder on the green paper. The green paper is basic grey, the blingy 70 is American Craft thickers and I used my nestabilities for the circle and scalloped circle. I have no idea who made the ribbon or the brown background paper!

The other thing I did tonight was figure out to put a watermark on my photos. I was worried I would need fancy photo editing software and I couldn't find my copy of Corel Draw so I did a bit of googling and came up with the instructions for creating a watermark using MS Paint! The tutorial can be found here. It's so very easy!

It's a lovely long weekend here in Oz and I'm so excited about getting to play with my new SU stamps tomorrow!! The weather is filthy hot at the moment so I'm very glad that I will be spending most of the weekend at my mum's place, as she has air conditioning! I intend to spend most of Saturday mounting my stamps and watching many episodes of Midsomner Murder (mum's addicted!) on DVD! :)

Stampin' Up! Goodies!!!!

So my Stampin' Up! Demo kit arrived today!!!! Unfortunately I have everything delivered to my mum's place as she's retired and therefore home more than I am. And she lives in Brisbane!! So I have to wait til Saturday to get my hands on all my goodies!! Oh the agony!!

I'm hoping to get a couple of cards done over the weekend so I'll post those here when I get back home to the coast. I'm so glad my kit arrived before the weekend, it's Australia Day weekend which means we have Monday off work!! Yay! More time to stamp!

I watched this video today on Michelle's blog, detailing how to make a stay put bow. Very informative. Unforutnately I don't have a hole punch or a cropodile. The cropodile is on my wishlist though!!

I'm also hoping to get involved in some of the Color Inspiration challenges posted on Kristina Werner's blog. I love stamping/scrapbooking blogs, they're so informative and pretty to look at!

Teddy Bear Cards

I've managed to do a few more cards. I am not putting any sayings/words on these cards as my mother intends to sell them to her friends and they have requested blank cards so that they can send them for any occasion. It makes things a bit more challenging when you can't add a saying or greeting.

Here's a close up of one of them:

I'm still very new to the whole using ink pads and aqua pens to watercolour, but I'm getting the hang of it and I love it!

This is the other card I made with a blue catepillar.

Cards n stuff

I'm about to become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator! I sent off my contract yesterday so now all I have to do is wait for my demo kit to arrive! I can't wait!!! Lots of lovely stampy stuff!!

I've been on a card making binge over the past week or so. And here are some of them:

These butterfly cards have the image stamped on the paper and then a cut out identical image placed on top so that the body is covering the background body but the wings are flappy outy. For want a better term!


This is a Gatefold card. I've never made one before but it turned out ok! The ribbon ties up to close the card.

This is a christmas card I made a few weeks ago for my friend. Its one of my favourites!








I finish my 4 weeks holiday tomorrow and I'm not very happy about it! I dont really want to go back to work on Monday. I'm going to miss staying up late and sleeping in late! Thankfully next weekend is a long weekend so I'll have an extra day to recover from working.

I heart books and stationery

I splurged a little this evening and ordered a few books from Better World Books.

I got:

• The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One


• Round Ireland with a Fridge


• Wishcraft : How to Get What You Really Want


• Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co.


• Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

I know, a bit of an odd choice of books but stuff I'm all really interested in. I've read Round Ireland with a Fridge before and it's hilarious. The author of Time Was Soft There also has another book I want to read but it's not in stock at the moment! Those 5 books cost me $66 including shipping from the US. Not bad!! Can't wait til they arrive.

I've always had a bit of a thing for stationery, much like many other people I guess. This website Notemaker is an Aussie website devoted to all things stationery. It has Moleskine books, organisers, leather bound books, calenders, stickers, diaries and lots of other cool stuff.

Some of the cool things on the site that I quite like are the Patterned Sticky Tape, cool Disposable Paper Placemats, Message in a Bottle and the Behance Action Book.

I am not dead

Yeah so it's been a while since I've blogged. Over a year actually. But thats ok, the blog is still here, patiently waiting for me to update it and make it pretty :)

I've decided to add a few links to things/sites I recently found, because we all like new stuff!

• Squidoo A very interesting site. It's similar to blogging but people generally focus on one topic and provide lots of interesting info, pictures, links etc. Something I might try to do one day. An example of a cool Squidoo page is The Last Drop about a pub in Edinburgh. If you're interested in making a Squidoo Lens but not sure how this blog might help.
• Barbara Sher - An author, whose book Refuse to Choose, totally inspires me. It's all about Scanners and how they have many varied interests, which is not normal according to the majority of the world. I love this book :)
• Hey Monkey Brain - Where smart people go to argue
• Better World Books - Similar to Amazon but the international shipping is incredibly cheap -$3.95 US per book. And they help ofset carbon emissions and a do a whole lot to help promote literacy around the world.
• Half Baked - For all your half baked ideas :) A very interesting site, worth a bit of a poke around.
• I can has Cheezburger - Funny, hilarious, cute, smart. Go there if you need a giggle

more animals

I'm currently starting a bit of a Pre-French Revolution/Marie Antoinette phase. I have a whole list of books I want to check out from the library this weekend. And this time I might actually do something with all the info I learn....like make a Squidoo page!

Over and out :)

Cupcakes

Well my birthday has come and gone. I had a pretty good day...only worked for half the day, spent the afternoon shopping and then went and saw Wild Hogs in the evening. It's a hilarious movie!! Totally recommend it.

I enjoyed spending time with my friends at the Casino and also enjoyed the Brissie Papercrafts Festival on the Sunday. I tried a few new techniques in Zina Wright's class such as using felt and poppets. I haven't actually finished the page yet as I need to get some black and white photos done.

I've got a new obsession...Cupcakes! I made some last week, which turned out edible but not as fabulously as I'd hoped. It seems cupcake making and decorating is an art. There are heaps of cupcake blogs out there, All Cupcakes All the time is my current favourite. Flickr also has lots of fun piccies of cupcakes to drool over.

I'm busy packing up all my worldly possessions this weekend. Work is moving to the Coast in exactly 4 weeks and I haven't even started looking for a place to live! I've discovered packing is a lot more work than I remembered, so it's going to take a while.

Birthdays

Today I'm going to my godson's first birthday party! He turned 1 yesterday and today there will be a party in a park, complete with BBQ and cake! I bought him some very cute winter clothes and a Fisher Price fire truck that has a fireman and a dalmation doggie. Must take camera!

Next Friday is MY BIRTHDAY! I'll be 27 :( So far the plan is to go see Wild Hogs at the movies on Friday night with Mum and maybe I'll pop in next door to Cold Rock for some yummy ice cream.

Saturday night I'm going to the Casino with some of my friends and we're going to gamble and drink yummy expensive cocktails.

Then on Sunday afternoon I'm attending a class at the Brisbane Papercraft Expo, which I've never been to before. The class I'm attending goes for 3 hours and is run by Zina Wright and is called Get Creative.

And in other non-birthday but very exciting news.....drumroll please.....I have lost 2.3 kilos this week!!! Since last Saturday. I am totally wrapt. I haven't lost this much weight in a week since my old Atkins days. I decided to stop doing Weight Watchers last Saturday and count calories and fat instead. This obviously works much better for me!!

Despite the fact that I have been trying to lose weight since the start of December, this brings me to a total loss of 2.8 kilos!

Bring on the cyclone!

I am so glad this week is over. It's been long and tiring. It's really warm here in Brissie today. There's a tropical cyclone halfway up the state and bizzare as it seems, everyone's hoping it will come down south and inland a bit so we can get a big chunk of rain. That will totally solve the water crisis (for a year or so anyway!) It's name is Cyclone Odette!

Here's some cool stuff I will be getting in the mail over the next couple of weeks.

The latest Poppy Ink kit called Rock Star:

The Poppy Ink Aussie add on kit. I think it's a mixture of stuff from the US add on kits.

I also ordered some stuff from Jenni Bowlin's site. I got the March Add on kit, the March Substitution kit, 6 chipboard scrolls and the vintage red journalling cards.

The add on kit:

The substitution kit:

The chipboard scrolls - I love these!:

And the journalling cards:

Today after getting my hair cut (just a trim) I stopped off at Photo Continental and bought 1 of almost every sheet of Basic Grey's new line Phoebe. I got 2 of the plain colours because they always come in handy. And so ends this weeks shopping binge. I hope!

I plan on getting some scrapping done this afternoon. I've downloaded a bunch of new tunes for inspiration so hopefully I'll have a few pages done by tomorrow. One would do really :)

Ode to homewares

I bought the cutest little hot water bottle today! It's only small but it comes with it's very own stripey jumper! Look:

Say it with me now....awwwww! :)

I also got this little cup thing with a chandelier on 2 sides.

I'm not sure what I'll use it for but if all else fails, it'll become my toothbrush holder!

I'm 99.99999% sure that I will be moving to the Gold Coast in about 6 weeks so I'm busy collecting cute fun things, such as the above, to decorate my new flat with. This will be the 2nd official time I've moved out (not including the time I moved to the UK for 10 months), so I actually have a few large housey items such as a fridge, a microwave and various other bits n bobs. I dont have a kitchen table yet. The year that I was living in Melbourne, I didn't have a kitchen table at all! I borrowed someone's outdoor plastic lawn table and chairs. I think I ate at that table maybe once or twice. This time, I intend to buy myself a real live wooden table with real wooden chairs from IKEA! I love IKEA!

I can hear music...

I saw Music & Lyrics at the movies last night. Hilariously funny! Seriously...if you need a laugh there's nothing funnier than Hugh Grant dressed up in 80s gear singing a very cheesy pop song! And his dancing! Brilliant!

The weekend is pretty much over although the premier of Ugly Betty is on tonight so I'll probably watch that and flick over to the Biggest Loser as it's weigh in night tonight.

I bought a beautiful platter thing at Myer yesterday, it was on special as were the two colourful ceramic bowls I bought. I've also ordered about 270 photos on snapfish, which are most of my Las Vegas photos except for about 30 or so pics of the Bellagio fountains.

I've had a very lovely lazy afternoon watching TV. Serendipty with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. And How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. I've never seen it before and I missed the first half hour but what I saw was excellent. Great storyline! Fabulous cast!

I've almost finished my Statue of Liberty layout. I just need journalling. Unfortunately I have nothing to say about it so it's just sitting there waiting for words.

Poppy Ink!

So this very yummy box of stuff was sitting on my doorstep when I arrived home! There's some gorgeous colours and the coolest shrinky stickers! Ooh and some bling bazzil and lots of funky papers and fab ric rac!! Two of the ric rak colours go perfectly with a layout I'm working on at the moment of the Statue of Liberty! (would you believe blue and lime green!?) Gonna have fun with this.

I had hoped the earrings I purchased on Etsy would arrive today but I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer.

Today's two peas challenge is a cracker:

Challenge - If you could live in any other time period of the world besides right now, what time period would you love to live in??? and why?

There's probably one or two different time periods I'd love to live in. The first one that came to mind was the time of the French Revolution. It's my favourite war. As in, the one I find most interesting. All wars are bad, but this one was sooo blood thirsty. I don't actually think I'd have liked to have lived through it, but it seems like such an interesting era. If you like getting your head chopped off that is! I've probably read the Scarlet Pimpernel a few too many times!

Another interesting era would be the 1950s-1970s. I'd love to witness the birth of rock n roll, back when music mattered so much and some seriously amazing musical artists came on the scene. I realise people who are a few years older than me got to live it but it's not the same hearing about it from people.

A Card!

I went on yet another mini shopping spree this morning. It wa'sn't intentional though. I really just wanted to get a copy of Elsie Flannigans book 52 Scrapbooking Challenges. I ended up getting that as well as:


Basic Grey Blush letter stickers, Heidi Swapp Center of Attention outline rubons and block black and white alpha stickers:
Black, white and dark pink Bazzil Bling cardstock and KI double sided patterned paper (reduced to 30 cents a sheet!!!)



And I have actually been productive this morning too. I made my cousin's 30th Birthday card.

I've been wanting to alter my style and make it more colourful and fun so I figured this card would be a good way to start.

I always make fun of this particular cousin by sending her cards pointing out how old she is (she's 3 years older than me) The quote on the card reads "Wisdom does not necessarily come with age"and on the inside it say "Sometimes age just shows up all by itself"

Front:


Inside:



Products used:

Poppy Ink Owl stamp
Making Memories tiny alphas
KI patterned paper
Heidi Swapp block alphas (for the 30)
Puffy red hearts from a Poppy Ink kit


I hope she likes it!

Etsy

I love Etsy. It's such a cool idea! I just bought myself my Valentine's Day present. I know I was thinking about getting a ipod armband but I saw these earrings and fell in love! The seller is j.nic designs and these are the earrings:



Beeeautiful! I love turquoise and I dont have any turquoise jewellery so I thought I'd do something about it!

I know which website I'm going to check out when buying my mum's mother's day pressie this year!

Vintage fun

I've had quite a bit of fun over the past 24hours, spending cash on various things.

Last night I popped into a shop on my way home called Bay Swiss. It's a homewares place but also does food. Anyway I ended up getting 4 bright pink place mats for $3 each! Reduced from $5 each. Bargain! And I got the cutest gingerbread man cookie cutters. There's 3 in the box and they're called Already Been Chewed Cookies because they look like someone's taken a bite out of them.

Aren't they cute! The pink stripy thing behind the box is one of the placemats I bought.

Today Mum and I went into the Valley to do some vintage/retro fabric shopping. The Valley is hard to describe. It's just outside the city centre, it's where China town is, is very hip and has lots of clubs but is also full of people you don't want meet late at night in a dark alley if you get my meaning. Anyway they have markets in the mall every Saturday and there's a lot of 2nd hand clothing/vintage shops. We managed to score some seriously scary stuff! It was so much fun. I actually bought 2 headscarfs at the markets which are quite nice. The blue one is more of an aqua colour:

The stuff below is stuff we found in 2nd hand stores. Most of the stuff we bought is 100% polyester!

In this picture we have a lovely bright green polyester shirt, a funky brown, orange and cream patterned shirt and a dark blue velvet skirt! How 70's is that patterned shirt?!

In this picture we have a red/pink striped top, another polyester dotted blue shirt, a flowery skirt and a very cool wavey blue shirt that makes your eyes go funny when you look at it!

In this photo we have a mini skirt that is black and brightly patterened with dangly bead things. I think it'll make a lovely cushion!. The pink flowery dress is actually really pretty in real life and the funky wavey red and black top would make a lovely head scarf.



And finally below there is a hideously scary shirt that's made up of quite a few different patterns. A almost as hideous red dress, a very lovely blue silk tie and a very funky red and white belt!

We also got a whole bunch of records, including some of the smaller ones! Some of them I'm actually keeping to listen to and the others are going to be altered.

We're probably going to be making hand bags, cushions, lamp shades and the like out of all our finds!

Yeehaw!

There's no journalling on this layout as I felt it was one of those pictures that speaks 1000 words :)

And really, what can you write about a bloke standing in the middle of times square in his tighty-whities?

The black alphas are Heidi Swapp, the Cowboy is Basic Grey, painted and NYC is also Basic Grey covered with BG Blush paper. The background is BG Blush too. The star is Heidi Swapp covered with silver glitter. Times Square is BG letter stickers and the brackets are BG chipboard painted.

Finding Dory

I would like to apologise to the aquatic community. I just ate Dory for dinner. That's right, I had Dory and chips for dinner (bloody yummy it was too!)

I did my attempted run thing again today. Still only managed 3 mins worth of running but I think I ran faster or better or something because my calves were screeeaming in pain. They were even more sore than my tendonitis which is saying something!

CHA is happening in Anaheim at the moment (disneyland and scrapping all in the one suburb!) Usually a lot of stuff appears that I absolutely love. This time there's only a few things but that's a very good thing as I'm trying to cut down on my scrapping spending.

The new stuff that I totally fell head over heels for is the new line by Elsie Flannigan called 'Love Elsie'. She's got 3 lines but the one I love the mostest is the one called 'Toby' It's a travel themed line and it's sooo freakin cool! A lot of companies assume that you want to do all your travel stuff using Parisian type colours and designs. Which would be fine if all you did was travel to Paris! Elsie's new travel line is bright and funky with lots of green and blue. Check out her blog!

I also love Basic Grey's new Precision File Set. Fabulous for when you're doing stuff with chipboard! Definitely getting one of those! I'm not drooling over any of their new paper lines, though I like most of the plain colours. Some of the patterns are ok but most are too flowery for me. More elephants and rockets I say!

Bazzil has some new bling cardstock which looks good, as well as some new shaped cardstock! I also liked Heidi Swapp's bling crowns! Very cute.

Today's Two Peas Challenge:

Inspiration. What kinds of things inspire you lately? Blog about it.

Well I'm totally inspired by that new Love Elsie line at the moment! Can't wait to get my hands on it.

Generally speaking though the thing that inspires me most is probably....colour. I sometimes go through phases of like one colour and trying to use it, wear it and just generally look at it. These days I'm going through a bit of a red and turquoise/aquamarine phase. I love retro colours too...it's amazing how colours that used to look so bad together can be altered and made funky!

Also my photos inspire me. I'm not saying they're all fabulous, but there are some that are really great. And when I sit down to scrap, I usually like to make sure I showcase the photos rather than make it all about the embellishments. Although sometimes it's just good to have fun and play and chuck whatever on a page! :)

Running!

I think I've tried to post this about 5 times already today! Silly Blogger!

I've started trying to run, using a program called Couch to 5k. It is a program that takes you from being a walker only through a 3 sessions per week, 9 week program (repeat weeks as necessary) that gradually increases your intervals of running until you are running continuously for 5km. Day 1, week 1 is 8mins running, 12 mins walking. I managed 3 mins running, 4.5 mins walking plus the 10minute warm up/cool down. Plus I staggered up a hill to get home.

It's tough, but I'm determined to keep at it because I felt so good after all the aches and pains went away. There's podcasts that you can download and it tells you when to run and when to walk.

I've decided to get myself an armband for my ipod if I'm still attempting this running thing by Mid-February, as my Valentine's Day present. Something similar to the one below. I keep worrying my ipod will fall out of my pocket.


Aren't I romantic?! :)