Such a Noob...

I got my scant collection of Copic Markers out yesterday and had a little fiddle...
And realised how bad I am at it! LOL
You know those gorgeously coloured scenes you see everywhere? Yeah, not on my little old blog!!
I figured I would still put them here, so when I do more, hopefully I will start to see a small improvement!

Thanks for stopping by!

More Love Notes..

A-la-KaiserCraft!
I decided this year to be organised...well, not completely, but I would like to try and remember a few birthdays on time this year *blush*
When I saw this lovely sturdy diary from kaisercraft in my DT pack this month I knew straight away what to do with it... A birthday diary!
Each month has a folder at the start of the month with a pocket to hold cards for that month (yeah..clearly not TOO organised or they would have all been made! lol)

The co ordinating mini envelopes were perfect for holding my address labels, postage stamps and any receipts for gifts that I buy for peeps!

Thanks so much for stopping by...I need to go soothe my husband and daughters fevered brows...I fear we have been visited by the tonsilitis fairy AGAIN!!! >:-(

Love Notes...

KaiserCraft style!
A LO of Mick and I :)
Neither of us actually liked the photo, but I figured I may as well use it ;)

I really liked using this range...in fact the more I used it, the more I liked it! I love how the KC papers are double sided...in fact I often have trouble deciding which side I like the most!!

And a shaker box card (tutorial for the shaker box is on the KaiserCraft blog)

Thanks for stopping by!

First Day Back!

Every year about this time, I start to think about home-schooling my kids.
Once they go back to school, I miss them so much.
The house is quiet.
I get stuff done.
But its no fun :(
Daisy agrees.... After 6 weeks of having them home, she also wants to home-school them ;)
They are growing so so so fast.

They did their own hair...apparently I only do *dorky* hair styles.

:-/

This girl is growing before my eyes! She seems so tall! (until I see her next to her classmates and she is the shortest in the class...like mother like daughter!)

And this little man...

He didn't want to go to Grade 1.

He wanted to stay in Prep for forever. And reading is stupid (apparently)

And now, its almost time to pick them up and hear about their day....
Would it be really uncool to be early for pick up on the first day back???

Thanks for stopping by! Hope your guys had a great first day back/at school fellow QLDers :)

The Men In My Life...

I am beyond blessed to have some of the world's most amazing men in my life.
True gentlemen.
They are men who are kind, and funny, and loving and generous, and well, amazing.
Each of them is selfless and giving.
And it all began with the example set by this guy...
My dad.
He truly lived the quote by Reverend Hesburgh 'The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother'.
He adored my mother.
He adores us.
Its pretty darn wonderful living life knowing that no mater what happens, that this incredible man will stand by you and love you...maybe not agreeing with what you have done, but loving you none-the-less.


Then there is my brother, Danny.
He also adores his wife.
And me :) When we were little he called me 'Ishy', because he couldn't say 'Kirsty'. He used to go to volleyball with my mum while I was at school. While he was there mum would buy him a little bag of lollies...which he would save for me :)
He is amazing. Last year, when mum was sick he drove from Canberra to Charter's Towers in 2 days.
After mum's funeral, when Nat broke her collar bone, he drove me home. No questions asked. Just jumped in the car and drove.
He also lost 50kg last year...AMAZING!
His wife is amazing too. I like that he married a shopping buddy for me ;)
I also like that they are about to make me an aunty for the first time :D

And I like that he buys me funny christmas presents. This year he bought me a life sized cardboard cut-out of Edward. He had been chuckling to himself for months about this one.


And then my baby brother Kimmy.

He has a great wife too, whom he adores.

He loves my kids, and plays with them for hours on end.
He is generous and loving and funny :)
I was 10 when he born. So I really remember him growing up. He was super cute with his blonde ringlets and cuteness :)
He is gentle..
So gentle in fact that he keeps a rubber glove by the back door to catch the frogs before they suicide in his pool.

I don't think he kisses each one before he releases them though...

And then there is Mick.

I don't know the words to describe how amazing he is.

He loves me.

He spent the hottest part of this week painting my craft room.
He picks me flowers.

He is generous and loving and giving.

And he is an amazing father.
Then, there is my boy...my Sammy.

He fights with me about how he loves me more than I love him.

He holds open doors for ladies and says 'ladies first'.
He snuggles me at any given opportunity

And he does a killer bomb dive!

I hope that every woman is as blessed as I am.

English Rose Collection

With all the excitement of Christmas, I think I forgot to share my KaiserCraft creations from my new favourite ever collection English Rose!
I made a friend of mine a mini album showcasing photos from her daughter's wedding :) The pinks and greens co-ordinated perfectly with her bridesmaid colours!

Its just such a pretty collection :)

And a Lo of three of my fave peeps ever ;)

And another keepsake for my friend!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

One Of Those Weeks...

This week has been one of THOSE weeks at our place. Nothing dreadful happening, just a few little things creeping up and attacking all at once!
Just before Christmas we noticed that our cat was not looking great. Then we got all wrapped up in preparations for Christmas, then we went away...leaving him with our wonderful friend who often looks after our house when we go away. Whenever this lovely lady looks after our cats, we come back to the fattest happiest cats you have ever seen :)
This time however, poor old Super Kitty (yeah, Sam named him...) had lost a LOT of weight and was terribly unwell upon our return.
We took him to the vet, and after some tests made the heart wrenching decision to have him euthanased.
Natalie in particular loved this boy.
She is devastated.
To prevent our other cat getting the same disease, we are now trying to convince him to be an inside cat. All he has done for the past few days (and nights) is cry for his lost friend :( I am soooooo tired! Its like having a baby all over again! lol

We have just recently had our roads re-opened to all of our major centres after a couple of weeks being very isolated. I haven't managed to get the kids back to school uniform shopping done...thankfully my dad stepped in and filled in some of the uniform shopping gaps for me! Some things you just can't buy in town!

Charlotte has been sick, and is now on anit-biotics for tonsilitis. She is NOT a nice patient. She takes being unwell as a personal affront to her person. She also likes to make everyone else as miserable as she feels *sigh*

It has been too hot/humid and midge infested to send the kids outside. So they all have cabin fever.

We lost our internet connection for 3 days, and I have a major uni assignment due on Monday- for which I (obviously) need my internet!

Mick is painting my scrapping room (YAY!!) but this means that the entire contents of my room are spread through our living areas...my house looks like a TIP!

Sam is now on permanent medication for his athsma, and we are sorting through all that this now brings.

So as you can see, its not one BIG thing just lots of little things... Obviously, nothing compared to the people who have lost everything in the horrible floods. I am so so thankful to have all these little inconsequential things to whine about. Really I am...I am just feeling overwhelmed!

No point to this post really...I am trying to put more *real* posts here for me to look back on later! Feel free to ignore :)

Get Picky!

I love visiting the Get Picky challenge site. The CT there are so talented and always leave me wanting to hide in my scrap space and create! I also like that I get challenged to move beyond using a single photo on ym page :)
This month's challenge provided this image as inspiration... Oh yeah...this looks so very similar to my own lounge room at Christmas...NOT!! I wish!
So many gorgeous things to be inspired with in this pic :)

I liked the white tone on tone colour scheme, with just some hints of blue. I also liked the warmth and homey-ness of the pic. I was inspired to scrap these older photos of my brother and I on Chistmas morning.

Sadly these photos- originally polaroid photos - have been severely water and mould damaged :( These are scanned copies, and although they printed out okay, they still aren't great photos.

I tried to make a flourish using some string...I like the way that it sort of sits and the homey-throw rug at the end of the couch- touch that it adds to the LO, even if it didn't go quite as planned ;)

I love these little blue Prima flowers, they added just the right amount of blue to the page...thanks again to lovely Lauren ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are managing to stay dry wherever you are...our town is now completely sold out of bread and milk, and I think we are about to have our main bridge go under again. Our trip to get back-to-school supplies isn't looking like going ahead at the moment!

Show Us Your Stuff...

Heee, not quite as rude as it sounds, I promise! Its a scrapping challenge site, that promotes the use of handmade goodness on your LOs :)
This month's first challenge is a sketch...perfect for this rusty old scrapper who has just had over two weeks away from her scrap room :O
I used this picture of my dad's christmas tree, proudly displaying mum's Santa hat up the top where an angel would usually be



As the sketch didn't have space for journalling, and I wanted to record the *why* behin d this photo, I journalled straight onto the photo...yep, using my own yucky handwriting LOL

My hadmade items are the little snowflake/stars...

And this Christmas tree. I knew what I wanted in my head, but could NOT find one in my stash, so I sketched out the tree and cut it out!

I love the look of the same toned buttons on the pink paper. Adds a little bit of detail and texture, without extra colour or busyness:) I also like the 'handmade' look that buttons seem to add to a page. Particulary if they are tied on with string!



Thanks so much for stopping by!

Oh my...

I just fell in love.
My brother and his amazing wife got a 3D ultrasound today, and shared the pics and video with us here.
I saw this face, and promptly lost my heart....

I think he/she (no they were mean and didn't get the between the legs *money shot*) looks like Natalie, and that mouth?? Its all my mum's :)

I truly believe that this baby is a gift from my mum(and God of course). He or she will help heal all of us in some small way...baby snuggles are the best most soothing thing for my soul.

And, the girls and I decided that he/she looks cute enough NOW, and that he/she should come NOW...not in 2 months time ;) lol

(and then I explained how babies need to cook in mummy's tummies for as long as possible)

Oooooh

I just popped over to Bridgette's blog and saw this....(I love the look of these kits, I am going to save my pennies and treat myself one of these days!)

Well it's time to start looking for a few design team member's to help compliment The Polkadot Place :) so if you would like to join my team and work with LIL old me in promoting my kit club adventure I would like to see your work

Please email me three pages and one off the page, this could be anything such as a card, a mini album etc its up to you :)
You need to have a blog, be confident in your self to set challenges on the blog, if you have an idea as to how to put a sketch together that would be an added bonus but is not essential, as i may call on you to provide a few sketches.

Your pieces need to showcase your best work, I am looking for techniques, the way you coordinate your colours together and also placement and design of your LO's
Please provide your postage address, your blog address and a bit of information about yourself, such as how long you have been scrapping what got you started, what gets you motivated to scrap, your family life and who else you design for? Please do not apply if you are already a design team member for another kit club
My email address is
enquiries@thepolkadotplace.com.au

Closing date is 20th January


Please advertise this Dt call out on your blogs so that i can spread the word

Thanks for your time
Bridge xx

Saturday Sketch

time at Kaisercraft, and this week's sketch is a double! EEEEEK!

I have a fear of double page LOs...so I felt very brave tackling this lol. Luckily the sketch made it super easy! I loved being *told* where all of the elements belonged :) The little tab in the sketch prompted me to add extra journalling and photos to the page too, which meant I got the story told, and all my photos scrapped for that day in the one page!
I absolutely love this Seaside line too. Just bright enough for kid photos, but also vintagey enough to keep me happy ;)
Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Loving!

At Scrap The Girls :)
The challenge was to scrap a favourite summer memory.
My favourite summer memory from this summer would have to be the relaxing days spent at my brother and sister in law's pool over Christmas. Just bliss...the kids are now old enough that we don't have to hop in with them...I just sat in the Bali hut, and supervised with a big old glass of icy cold Coke Zero :)

I used some more of the gorgeous Graphic 45 PPs that Lauren gave to me (thanks Lauren! I am having a love affair with these papers! lol)

I liked using some less *summery* and *girly* colours than usual...I liked the grungey, vintage colours!

And some gorgeous October Afternoon papers....*swoon*
I love that manufacturer!

It felt kinda nice to re-discover my scrap room after a two week break! Everything looks brand new...kind of like a shopping spree, without the buyers remorse!!!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Its Been A While!

Since I updated!
Between, my computer virus, christmas and school holidays, my poor little blog has been sadly neglected :(
Well, this year, Mick, the kids and I managed to escape Mundubbera for Christmas, just before the town got flooded. Yep, days before the town was inundated with 19.2m of water, we left for Ballina. Some families in town here had a truly horrid christmas. Some lost everything. So sad.
Whilst in Ballina there was alot of this...
Just hanging with the fam :)
See my sis in law Adele in the foreground? She is about to make christmases a whole lot more fun...only 80 days until my first neice/nephew arrives!
We walked on the wall in between showers of rain and storms.

And Christmas day was full of emotional, sad times. Oh how we missed my mum. So much.

But she was so remembered. I cried when I saw dad's christmas tree. Sitting on top was mum's Santa hat. So perfectly *her*. Pink, sparkly and fabulous.

I also went on christmas day with my family and saw mum's headstone for the first time.

The kids made sure though, that Christmas was full of fun and celebration also!

Trying to get a photo of Sam was almost impossible. He was frantic with the excitemant! Every photo I took is blurry, as he was SO busy!

He actually gave us quite a scare, ending up in hospital a few days before Christmas with his first ever athsma attack. He kept telling the nurses that he couldn't stay, he had to 'get back on the road'. lol

I knew he was better when on his 6th nebuliser treatment, he used the mask to gasp 'Mum, I am your father' Darth Vader style lol

There was an almighty Nerf war that lasted many days....

With casualties. Of course ;)

lol

We spent New Years Eve on Lennox Headland eating fish and chips. Heaven! Such a great view!

And then, we pretty much just hung out by the pool.

(this photo would have to be my fave pic of 2010...I just love it!)

The kids slept well every night! I think Uncle Kimmy might have too ;)

Sam is just starting to make every shot absolutely impossible. I guess it had to happen sooner or later...lol

And now we are back to real life, as opposed to the amazing life we shared for a few days in Ballina...

So, from my family to yours....Happy 2011!

Thanks so very much for stopping by!!